THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE   DUCHESS  EMILIA 


A    ROMANCE 


BY 


BARRETT    WENDELL 


"  The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting." 

WORDSWORTH. 


BOSTON 
JAMES    R.  OSGOOD   AND  COMPANY 

1885 


Copyright,  1885, 
BY  JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 

All  rights  reserved. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


THE    DUCHESS    EMILIA. 


INTRODUCTION. 

'HPHE  Rome  of  the  Caesars  is  dead  and 
•*-  gone,  —  dead  and  gone  like  that  shadowy 
Rome  whose  secret  name  lay  hidden  in  the 
hearts  of  her  priests.  And  there  is  another 
Rome,  a  Rome  our  fathers  knew,  a  Rome 
we  saw  ourselves,  which  shall  be  seen  no 
more  by  men.  Indeed,  it  seems  now  that  men 
will  see  less  of  the  Rome  of  the  Popes  than 
of  the  older  cities  on  which  she  reared  her 
self.  For  scientific  people  are  at  work  digging 
up  Forums,  and  breaking  great  boulevards 
through  the  heart  of  the  houses,  where  filth 
and  fever,  and  picturesque  things  speakable 
and  unspeakable,  used  to  dwell  together  in 
peace  under  the  Holy  Fathers'  sway.  The 


The  Duchess  Emilia. 


stones  that  were  worn  by  the  sandalled  feet 
of  consuls  and  the  chariot-wheels  of  imperial 
generals  are  coming  to  light  once  more.  The 
streets  whose  dust  blew  about  the  gilded  coaches 
of  the  Cardinals  are  vanishing  away.  The  old 
papal  times  are  a  legend  to  children,  —  such  a 
legend  as  British  rule  was  to  American  chil 
dren  when  our  Republic  was  new.  And  men 
who  love  to  dream,  look  back  to  those  times 
already  as  to  a  fantastic  past,  where  in  clouds 
of  color  and  glory  things  of  this  world  and 
of  the  next  —  sin  and  holiness,  ecstasy  and 
intrigue,  beauty  and  passion,  charity  and  gran 
deur —  rolled  inseparably  mingled  before  the 
eyes  alike  of  those  who  bowed  before  the  Vice 
gerent  of  Christ,  and  of  those  who  stood  erect 
as  he  passed. 

The  tale  I  wish  to  tell  is  a  tale  of  that  van 
ished  Rome.  The  man  whose  papers  tell  the 
tale  to  me  lived  in  years  not  far  gone.  The 
mill  his  father  built  on  the  Merrimac  still  pays 
dividends.  And  for  aught  I  know  the  friends 
he  knew  in  Rome  are  still  in  Rome,  rejoicing 


The  Duchess  Emilia. 


or  sorrowing  in  the  rule  of  hirsute  King  Hum 
bert.  In  plain  figures,  it  is  not  quite  forty  years 
since  Richard  Beverly  went  to  Italy,  yet  it  is 
long  enough  for  him  to  have  become  a  strangely 
mystic  figure  of  the  past,  who  seems  as  unreal 
to-day  as  does  the  Rome  of  which  his  writing 
tells. 

He  was  my  kinsman.  To  be  sure,  I  never 
saw  him.  When  I  was  born  he  was  already 
dead.  When  I  was  old  enough  to  hear  his 
name,  he  was  spoken  of  as  an  erratic  person, 
whose  unspecified  but  singular  behavior  had 
been  by  no  means  what  should  have  been  looked 
for  from  a  respectable  American.  Our  people 
were  men  of  affairs,  who  thought  more  about 
cotton  than  about  poetry.  As  for  romance  or 
mystery,  I  doubt  that  you  could  have  taught 
them  what  the  words  mean. 

Perhaps  from  the  fondness  for  opposition  com 
mon  in  children,  perhaps  —  and  I  like  to  think 
so  —  from  some  sympathy  that  would  have 
made  me  Richard  Beverly's  friend,  had  he 
lived  to  know  me,  I  grew  first  to  wondering 


The  Duchess  Emilia. 


what  his  singular  behavior  could  have  been  ; 
then  to  conjuring  up  all  manner  of  strange 
deeds,  heroic  and  mystical,  and  attributing 
them  to  him ;  finally  to  loving  the  kindly  and 
romantic  figure  which  I  called  by,  his  name. 
The  delight  that  some  children  find  in  half- 
believed  day-dreams  of  cities  and  kingdoms 
which  their  fancy  builds,  I  found  in  dreaming 
of  Richard  Beverly.  I  conjured  up  a  Rome 
for  him  to  dwell  in  ;  I  conjured  up  his  figure  as 
the  most  potent  dweller  therein.  I  grew  to 
think  of  him  as  mine,  and  to  love  him  with  all 
the  self-applauding  intensity  of  a  creator. 

Years  afterwards — not  long  ago,  in  fact  — 
I  came  across  the  papers  that  were  sent  home 
from  Rome  when  Beverly  died.  I  read  them 
with  an  interest  perhaps  exaggerated  by  the 
fantastic  memories  that  in  my  mind  clustered 
about  his  name.  Yet  making  all  allowance  for 
this  prejudice,  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  last 
days,  unlike  as  they  were  to  the  grand  career 
that  I  had  been  used  to  dream  about  as  his, 
had  a  strange  beauty  of  their  own.  And  this 


The  Duchess  Emilia. 


beauty,  I  thought,  might  win  from  others  for 
his  memory  such  loving  admiration  as  it  wins 
from  me,  —  an  admiration  far  different  from 
that  which  in  my  childhood  I  blindly  gave  to 
the  legends  I  wove  about  his  name. 

So  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  tell  his  story. 
I  shall  tell  it  chiefly  in  his  own  words,  adding 
only  such  passages  as  are  needed  to  explain 
them.  In  so  doing  I  feel  that  I  do  tardy  jus 
tice  to  one  whom  those  that  knew  him  mis 
judged.  Richard  Beverly  is  remembered  by 
those  who  remember  him  at  all  as  a  foolish 
madman.  He  ought  to  be  so  thought  of  no 
more.  Mad,  indeed,  he  may  have  been ;  but 
their  hearts  must  be  harder  than  mine  who 
do  not  see  something  more  than  folly  gleaming 
through  the  clouds  that  closed  about  his  life 
in  the  midst  of  Pope  Gregory's  Rome,  —  a 
Rome  now  as  dead  and  as  forgotten  of  the 
world  as  is  Beverly  himself. 


T~)  ICHARD  BEVERLY  was  the  only  child 
•1^"  of  parents  who  married  late  in  life.  He 
came  of  one  of  those  old  New  England  families 
that  live  through  generation  after  generation 
in  country  pulpits,  until  at  length  the  energy 
that  has  been  gathering  in  the  stock  reveals 
itself,  usually  in  no  very  ministerial  way. 
Richard's  father  it  was  who  brought  the  Bev- 
erlys  out  of  the  Orthodox  Church  and  into  the 
world.  A  remarkably  keen  man  of  business, 
he  was  in  early  life  one  of  those  who  founded 
the  great  mills  that  have  made  the  commercial 
fortune  of  New  England ;  and  in  a  money 
way  he  prospered  exceedingly.  Richard  Bev 
erly  left  a  handsome  estate. 

Along  with  fortune  came  to  old  Mr.  Beverly 
the  curse  that  the  long  agonies  of  our  pious 
fathers  have  handed  down  to  us,  to  temper  the 
blessings  of  their  sharp  wit  and  their  honesty. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  11 

He  would  fall  into  fits  of  despondency  so  deep 
that  his  friends  would  grow  seriously  alarmed. 
At  last  he  was  observed  to  eye  his  razor  with 
so  fond  a  glance  that  it  was  thought  well  to 
put  him  under  control  for  a  while.  So,  not  un 
willingly,  for  he  was  quite  aware  of  his  infirm 
ity,  he  was  bundled  off  to  an  asylum,  where 
he  soon  recovered  from  the  attack.  This  timely 
proceeding,  which  undoubtedly  saved  him  from 
one  fate,  resulted  in  plunging  him  into  another. 
At  the  asylum  was  a  lady,  no  longer  in  the  first 
bloom  of  youth,  whose  excessively  romantic  be 
havior  had  led  competent  authorities  to  pro 
nounce  her  mind  unbalanced ;  so  she  had  been 
temporarily  retired  from  the  world.  She  had 
known  Mr.  Beverly  of  old.  His  merits,  which 
were  mostly  of  the  practical  sort,  had  never 
appealed  to  her  in  general  society.  But  now 
that  the  pair  were  thrown  together  perforce, 
she  discovered  in  him  many  admirable  traits. 
Indeed,  I  suppose  that  any  susceptible  woman 
is  sure  to  discover  them  in  a  man  whom  she 
is  compelled  to  see  every  day.  And  any  sus- 


12  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

ceptible  woman  may  be  trusted  to  do  what  this 
one  did,  namely,  to  fall  very  honestly  in  love 
with  the  possessor  of  the  traits  in  question. 
Whether  Mr.  Beverly  fell  in  love  with  her  or 
not  has  never  been  quite  settled.  However 
this  may  have  been,  they  were  married,  to  the 
great  scandal  of  society,  soon  after  they  emerged 
from  the  singular  place  which  had  witnessed 
their  courtship. 

The  marriage  was  a  happy  one.  Mrs.  Bev 
erly  turned  out  to  be  an  excellent  house-keeper ; 
and  as  duties  began  to  present  themselves  she 
found  no  more  time  for  romance.  So,  barring 
a  very  marked  experience  of  religion  a  year  or 
two  before  she  died,  she  was  perfectly  sane  for 
the  rest  of  her  life.  Mr.  Beverly  was  not  so 
lucky.  He  went  on  and  prospered  for  some 
years,  and  gave  good  dinners,  and  bought  a 
good  deal  of  celebrated  Madeira.  Then,  one 
day,  overwork  or  the  strength  of  Puritan  sad 
ness  asserting  itself  in  spite  of  environment, 
put  an  end  to  dinners  and  Madeira  and  cotton 
and  clubs.  He  cut  his  throat.  His  was  one 


Tlie  Duchess  Emilia.  13 

of  the  first  of  the  marble  monuments  that  make 
ghastly  the  hills  of  Mount  Auburn. 

That  Richard  Beverly,  coming  of  such  par 
entage,  should  be  a  strange  fellow  was  only 
to  be  expected.  So  much  was  it  to  be  ex 
pected,  indeed,  that  everybody  who  knew  him 
was  on  the  watch  for  oddities ;  and  with  that 
sage  acuteness  which  people  show  when  their 
attention  is  aroused,  his  friends  were  prepared 
to  assert  that  they  observed  something  uncanny 
even  in  his  baby  cries.  Yet,  after  all,  so  far  as 
I  can  discover  from  what  tales  of  his  childhood 
remain  after  sixty  years  and  more,  he  was  in 
many  respects  a  normal  boy  enough.  To  be 
sure,  he  was  self-conscious ;  but  then,  he  was 
the  solitary  pet  of  a  sentimental  woman  advanc 
ing  in  years,  and  besides,  he  was  very  handsome. 
A  portrait  of  him  is  still  preserved.  It  is  very 
ill-painted.  But  all  that  the  painter  could  do 
to  caricature  the  boy,  who  sits  in  his  best  green 
jacket  and  broad  white  collar,  stiffly  leaning  his 
head  upon  his  right  hand,  could  not  conceal 
his  marvellous  great  eyes,  and  his  clean-cut 


14  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

features,  and  his  rich  dark  skin,  and  his  bil 
lowy  black  curls.  So,  just  as  Mrs.  Beverly 
spoiled  him  because  he  was  her  son,  other 
people  must  have  spoiled  him  because  he  was 
a  beauty. 

There  is  no  doubt,  too,  that  he  had  a  curi 
ously  sensitive  nature  and  a  sense  of  honor  so 
fantastic  that  it  sometimes  got  him  into  trouble 
with  his  less  high-strung  acquaintance.  Once, 
when  a  cousin  of  about  his  own  age  began,  in 
a  fit  of  confidence,  to  tell  Richard  some  child 
ish  secret  of  unspeakable  importance  for  the 
moment,  Richard  begged  him  to  stop.  For, 
the  strange  child  observed,  if  somebody  should 
happen  to  ask  him  whether  he  knew  anything 
about  the  matter  in  question  he  should  have 
to  answer  yes.  Upon  this  declaration  of  prin 
ciple  a  fight  ensued,  in  which  Richard  was 
worsted  ;  and  the  consequent  wrath  of  his 
mother  gave  rise  to  a  family  feud  that  was 
not  healed  until  the  assailing  cousin  came,  in 
a  spirit  of  Christian  condonation,  to  Mrs.  Bev 
erly's  funeral.  The  feud  preserved  the  .story. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  15 

There  is  another  tale  of  him  when  he  was 
a  little  older,  which  I  have  from  my  mother. 
At  dancing-school,  where  from  time  out  of  mind 
the  youth  of  Boston  have  made  their  first  ap 
pearance  in  the  social  world,  she  was  something 
of  a  belle.  One  day  Richard  Beverly  came  run 
ning  into  the  room,  quite  out  of  breath,  and 
invited  her  to  dance  with  him.  She  had  hardly 
accepted  when  another  admirer  followed  in  his 
footsteps.  Whereupon,  before  she  had  time  to 
decline  the  second  invitation,  Richard  grew  very 
red  in  the  face,  and  stammering  a  little,  amazed 
her  by  declaring  that  he  thought  she  had  better 
dance  with  the  other  boy. 

"  The  fact  is,"  he  said,  "  I  heard  him  say  that 
he  was  going  to  ask  you  ;  and  I  ran  in  first.  I 
don't  think  I  was  quite  fair." 

And  thereupon,  Master  Richard  made  an 
awkward  bow  and  glided  off,  much  to  the  dis 
pleasure  of  his  partner.  A  few  days  afterwards, 
he  came  running  after  her  in  the  street  and 
handed  her  a  nosegay. 

"  I  thought  you  might  like  these,"  he  said, 


16  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  and  besides,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  really 
wanted  to  dance  with  you,  only  it  did  n't  seem 
quite  fair.  It  was  n't  that  I  did  n't  want  to,"  — 
which  speech  involved  a  supposition  that  put 
him  more  out  of  favor  than  ever. 

A  bluff  old  uncle  of  mine  has  told  me  of 
another  trait  of  Beverly's. 

"  The  fellow's  mind,"  he  said,  "  was un 
wholesome.  Why,  sir,  if  you  undertook  to  tell 
him  a  decent  story,  he  'd  stare  as  if  you  were 
talking  to  a  woman." 

My  uncle's  conception  of  decent  stories,  I  may 
add,  was  of  the  robust  old  school. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  Beverly's 
oddities,  however,  was  of  a  very  different  kind. 
It  was  an  amazing  aptitude  for  the  Italian  lan 
guage.  To  the  inexpressible  astonishment  of  the 
professor  who  introduced  him  to  that  musical 
tongue,  he  learned  to  read  it  in  a  few  weeks, 
and  to  speak  and  write  it  in  a  few  months,  as 
well  as  the  professor  himself  could.  It  seemed, 
Beverly  said,  like  remembering  something  that 
he  had  known  before. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  17 

"  Per  Bacco ! "  swore  the  professor,  "  his 
intellect  is  without  limitation." 

The  professor,  like  some  other  men,  had  a 
convenient  habit  of  measuring  mental  capacity 
by  the  ease  with  which  people  grasped  his 
ideas. 

There  are  a  few  more  stories  of  Beverly's 
youth,  which  repeat  the  traits  indicated  in  those 
which  I  have  told.  At  .the  same  time,  when 
nothing  happened  to  excite  his  morbid  propen 
sities,  he  seems  to  have  behaved  like  a  healthy 
boy.  He  was  fond  of  exercise,  and  a  good 
athlete  according  to  the  simple  standards  of  the 
time.  And  he  had  as  hearty  a  dislike  of  apron- 
strings  as  if  there  had  been  nothing  odd  in  his 
character.  He  did  not  lack  self-assertion  either ; 
it  is  remembered  that  when  his  querulous  par 
ent  insisted  that  at  twelve  years  old  he  must  be 
followed  about  by  a  servant,  he  flatly  refused  to 
go  out  of  doors  unless  he  might  go  alone.  All 
the  same,  I  think  Mrs.  Beverly's  excessive  care 
repressed  some  of  the  robustness  that  was  really 
in  his  nature. 

2 


18  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

When  Richard  was  somewhat  past  twenty, 
Mrs.  Beverly  brought  her  earthly  career  to  an 
end  in  the  odor  of  sanctity.  Then  Richard,  left 
without  the  care  which  had  bored  him  while  he 
still  had  it,  fell  into  a  gloomy  state  of  mind. 
His  mourning  kept  him  much  to  himself;  and 
his  fortune  was  large  enough  to  relieve  him  of 
the  necessity  of  doing  anything  to  increase  it. 
American  men  of  inherited  wealth  are  now  as 
plenty  as  grasshoppers ;  but  in  his  day  you 
could  have  counted  them  on  your  fingers ;  so 
it  was  held  a  fresh  piece  of  eccentricity  that 
he  seemed  determined,  with  rare  fixedness  of 
purpose,  to  do  nothing  in  particular.  Now 
nothing  in  particular  is  by  no  means  good  food 
for  the  mind ;  and  he  was  soon  so  despondent 
that  people  began  to  shake  their  heads  and  talk 
about  the  paternal  razor. 

But  I  think  that  people  were  wrong.  He 
always  kept  a  singularly  full  journal ;  yet  in  the 
pages  which  were  written  about  this  time  I  find 
nothing  to  indicate  any  thought  of  suicide. 
His  trouble  seems  to  have  been  not  a  longing 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  19 

to  escape  from  life,  but  a  restless  eagerness  to 
do  in  life  some  duty  which  he  could  not  see 
plainly. 

"I  cannot  get  rid  of  the  idea,"  he  writes, 
"  that  I  am  in  the  world  for  some  definite  rea 
son.  It  is  a  common  enough  idea,  they  tell  me. 
I  was  sent  here  to  do  my  duty  in  general,  they 
go  on  to  say ;  it  consists  partly  of  church-going, 
and  partly  of  making  money  as  fast  as  possible, 
and  partly  of  being  either  very  radical  or  very 
conservative,  as  the  case  may  be,  on  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery.  Bah !  Such  commonplaces 
make  me  mad.  It  is  none  of  them  or  of  their 
kind  that  I  look  for.  But  I  feel  —  I  have  grown 
to  feel  day  after  day  and  month  after  month  — 
that  I  am  here  in  this  world  of  sunshine  and 
darkness  because  I  have  a  work  to  do,  a  work 
as  real  as  a  Messiah's.  It  is  a  work  that  no  man 
but  I  can  do  ;  yet  what  it  is  I  cannot  tell. 
And  the  time  may  be  passing  ;  and  the  work 
may  be  left  undone  forever.  Yet  I  can  find  no 
light,  nor  any  seer." 


20  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Shortly  after  he  wrote  these  lines  in  his 
journal  he  started  on  the  travels  from  which  he 
never  returned.  Cleveland,  the  painter,  who 
married  our  cousin,  was  already  in  Rome,  one 
of  the  first  of  our  countrymen  to  take  up  his 
professional  abode  there.  He  wrote  to  Beverly 
sundry  attractive  things.  And  one  day  Boston 
awoke  to  find  that  Richard  Beverly  had  packed 
up  and  gone. 


II. 


HOW  he  crossed  the  Atlantic  has  little  to 
do  with  us.  Nor  shall  I  pause  any  more 
than  he  paused  in  misty,  green  England,  whose 
young  queen  had  lately  begun  her  reign ;  or  in 
far-stretching  France,  where  respectable  citizen- 
monarchy  still  upheld  the  throne  of  pear-faced 
Louis-Philippe.  His  melancholy  went  with 
him.  Other  men  looked  with  joy  at  the  un 
wonted  sights  of  the  Old  World ;  he  seems  to 
have  found  pleasure  out  of  the  question,  for 
he  was  still  tormented  by  his  old  perplexity. 
For  what  purpose  was  he  come  into  this  world 
through  which  he  was  journeying,  he  asked 
himself  over  and  over  again.  England  and 
France  gave  no  answer ;  nor  yet  the  grim 
Swiss  mountains,  with  their  rocks  and  their 
glaciers  and  their  gaunt  pines.  But  when  at 
last  he  climbed  the  Alps  and  looked  down  upon 


22  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

the  land  to  which  he  travelled,  a  great  flood 
of  happiness  swept  over  him,  —  such  happiness 
as  the  old  Hebrews  felt  when  from  the  moun 
tain-top  they  gazed  upon  the  fields  that  Heaven 
had  promised  to  their  children. 

"  Italy's  beauty,"  he  writes,  "  begins  with 
Italy.  Indeed,  it  should  seem  that  some  magic 
dwelt  in  her  name,  and  cast  a  veil  of  splendor 
over  all  things  that  are  permitted  to  bear  it. 
Why,  it  is  worth  while  to  come  into  the  world 
only  to  breathe  such  air  as  I  have  breathed 
to-day.  The  lazy  horses  have  droned  along 
the  road.  I  would  not  have  them  speeded. 
Had  each  step  taken  a  century  it  would  not 
have  been  too  long.  The  savage  Alps  are 
behind  me,  though  the  country  still  heaves 
with  the  same  blows  that  drove  the  Swiss 
rocks  skyward.  And  perchance,  if  the  magic 
of  Italy  did  not  rest  on  this  landscape,  this, 
too,  would  be  as  full  of  the  grandeur  of  deso 
lation.  But  here  no  rock  peeps  out  save  from 
a  bed  of  verdure  soft  as  a  mother's  breast.  No 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  23 

tree,  no  shrub,  no  green  thing  grows  as  if 
growth  were  labor.  The  curse  of  birth-agony 
seems  stricken  out  of  the  world.  Like  the 
waters  that  leap  down  the  mill-races,  all  Nature 
laughs  here,  even  as  she  groaned  in  the  North 
ern  land.  And  she  laughs  a  laugh  of  happiness, 
like  the  laugh  of  one  who  has  eaten  and  drunk 
well,  and  who  sits  in  the  midst  of  his  children, 
at  peace  with  the  world.  Strange  idiots  with 
huge  necks  gibbered  at  us  from  their  crazy 
barracks  as  we  climbed  the  Alps.  Here  dark- 
eyed  girls  sit  in  their  cottage  doors,  and  glance 
roguishly  at  us  as  we  pass  ;  and  when  we  look 
back  they  bend  their  heads  once  more  over  the 
spinning-wheel,  with  flushing  cheeks.  And  we, 
finding  no  eye  to  meet  ours,  look  further ;  and 
lose  our  thoughts  among  the  vineyards,  where 
vine  and  tree  cling  together  as  lovingly  as 
virgin  lovers  meeting  when  the  sun  goes  down. 
Nay,  even  misery  itself  laughs.  Sturdy  fellows, 
with  vast  brown  breasts  bared  from  boyhood 
to  sun  and  wind,  hang  their  heads  and  thrust 
out  their  hands  for  help.  To-day  I  would  give 


24  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

alms  even  to  a  shivering  Swiss.  I  fling  coins 
to  these  merry  children  of  the  land  that  shall 
be  mine  henceforth.  And  I  bid  them  laugh  out 
the  laugh  that  I  see  hidden  in  their  eyes ;  and 
merrily  drink  to  me,  their  brother  who  is  come 
home.  For  Italy  is  to  all  men  a  second  father 
land,  nearer  than  Heaven  and  not  less  lovely. 
And  it  is  a  merry  land.  And  life  is  a  merry 
thing." 

Now  all  this  is  romantic,  overwrought  stuff, 
if  you  please ;  but  surely  it  is  not  morbidly 
suicidal.  And  this  is  the  sort  of  thing  that 
Richard  Beverly  wrote  as  he  made  his  way 
towards  Rome.  In  this  mood  he  came  to  merry 
Milan,  where  even  under  the  white-coated  Aus- 
trians  all  life  seemed  one  long  festival.  There 
he  duly  admired  the  dark,  sleepy-eyed  women, 
with  their  fans  and  their  mantillas ;  and  the 
great  white  cathedral.  Then  on  to  Bologna, 
where  he  thought  the  Caracci  great ;  but  stood 
beneath  the  Carisenda  and  watched  the  clouds 
pass  over  the  toppling  pile,  because  Dante  had 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  25 

stood  there  and  watched  before  him.  Then 
came  ducal  Florence,  where  he  was  full  of 
Dante  again,  as  he  saw  the  fair  San  Giovanni 
that  Dante  called  his  own;  and  standing  by 
the  stone  where  men  say  Dante  sat  of  old, 
looked  up  at  the  tower  of  Giotto.  Here,  too, 
the  paintings  opened  to  him  a  new  world  of 
beauty.  Whence  came  the  colors  which  the 
dead  masters  laid  upon  their  canvases,  he  won 
dered  for  a  while  in  vain.  Then,  one  evening, 
as  he  stood  at  Fiesole  and  looked  down  the 
soft  valley  of  the  Arno,  the  sunset  light  of 
Italy  came  streaming  up  from  the  west  and 
told  him. 

Then  he  drove  through  the  steep  Etruscan 
country  and  looked  down  on  the  Trasimene 
lake  ;  and  saw  Perugia  perched  upon  her  rocky 
hill;  and  Assisi,  with  her  vast  piles  of  holy 
masonry;  and  Terni,  with  her  rushing  waters. 
And  late  one  afternoon  he  came  to  Rome. 


III. 

IN  those  days  the  Cardinals  were  the  greatest 
people  in  Rome,  except,  of  course,  the  Holy 
Father,  whose  white  mules  still  jingled  past 
churches  and  palaces  and  fountains.  The  Car 
dinals  were  something  more  than  high  priests. 
One  of  them  was  sure  to  be,  any  one  of  them 
might  be,  the  ruler  of  the  people  who  smiled  or 
frowned  as  they  swept  along,  with  stiff  lackeys 
and  great  umbrellas  behind  their  lumbering  car 
riages.  And  most  of  them  were  familiar  figures. 
There  was  one,  however,  who  was  little  more 
than  a  name  to  the  Romans ;  and  perhaps  for 
that  very  reason  his  name  seemed  fraught  with 
more  dignity  than  those  of  the  astute  priests 
whose  faces  and  whose  deeds  were  always  meet 
ing  you.  The  Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna  kept 
within  his  own  doors,  save  on  those  great  occa 
sions  of  state  when  all  the  pillars  of  the  Church 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  27 

were  in  dut}'  bound  publicly  to  uphold  her 
splendor.  With  the  active  life  of  the  time  he 
had  little  to  do ;  and  when  on  rare  occasions 
his  venerable  figure  passed  before  the  eyes  of 
common  men,  it  seemed  more  than  any  other 
to  embody  the  apostolic  dignity  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Other  members  of  the  sacred  college 
sharpened  their  wits  in  far-reaching  diplomatic 
contests ;  and  spent  what  time  they  had  to 
spare  in  endless  intrigues,  which  all  their  cun 
ning  could  not  keep  hidden,  to  bring  them 
selves  nearer  the  chair  of  Saint  Peter.  Giulio 
Colonna  sat  apart.  Every  day,  men  said,  he 
passed  hours  in  solitary  prayer.  His  thoughts 
were  more  of  the  other  world  than  of  this ;  and 
devout  people  were  not  wanting  who  whispered 
that  holy  visions  had  opened  to  his  living  eyes 
glories  that  many  of  his  brethren  should  never 
see  through  all  the  ages.  When  these  devout 
people  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  face,  they  saw 
in  the  fixed  calm  of  his  features,  and  in  the 
distant  look  of  the  eyes  that  had  not  grown  so 
old  as  had  his  bent  shoulders,  something  that 


28  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

betokened  knowledge  of  things  that  other  men 
only  guessed  at.  As  Dante's  grim  visage  scared 
the  children  who  thought  they  saw  lurking  in 
its  wrinkles  the  grime  of  Hell,  so  the  old  Car 
dinal's  deep  eyes  told  believers  that  living  men 
might  still  have  glimpses  of  Heaven.  So  he 
lived  and  prayed  apart  from  the  world.  And 
clever  people  said  that  he  was  very  clever ;  and 
that  his  failing  strength,  together  with  his  ever 
growing  holiness,  was  enough  to  insure  him  Pope 
Gregory's  seat,  if  he  only  survived  Pope  Greg 
ory.  Some,  indeed,  ventured  to  hint  as  much, 
when  his  wily  chaplain,  Monsignor  dei  Bardi, 
was  by.  Whereat  Monsignor,  than  whom  no 
better  man  of  business  or  of  state  wore  violet 
stockings,  would  generally  put  his  smiling  head 
a  little  more  to  one  side  than  usual,  and  would 
take  a  pinch  of  snuff,  and  utter  through  his 
thin  lips  some  epigram  clever  enough  to  make 
those  that  hinted  wish  that  they  had  held  their 
peace. 

Yet,  if  old  stories  could  be  believed,  Giulio 
Colonna's  life   had  not  been  one  of  unmixed 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  29 

holiness.  Legends  grow  fast,  to  be  sure,  and 
perhaps  the  greater  part  of  the  story  was  a 
legend ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  that  in  his 
youth  the  saintly  Cardinal  had  been  a  man  of 
war.  No  more  gallant  officer,  in  every  sense 
of  the  word,  had  worn  spurs  and  uniform  in  his 
early  days.  And  when,  soon  after  his  brother's 
death  had  placed  in  his  hands  what  was  left 
of  the  Colonna  fortune,  he  had  taken  to  the 
Church,  instead  of  taking  to  himself  a  duchess 
from  among  the  Roman  maidens  who  clustered 
about  his  ducal  path,  there  had  been  a  good 
deal  of  surprise,  and  no  small  amount  of  head- 
shaking.  Something  certainly  must  have  hap 
pened  to  change  a  man  of  the  world  into  a  man 
of  God.  Perhaps  it  was  a  miracle.  But  the 
story  that  people  whispered  had  nothing  miracu 
lous  about  it.  Indeed,  in  papal  Rome  it  was 
commonplace ;  but  to  us  of  the  New  World 
such  tales  are  not  commonplace  as  yet.  And 
I  am  ardent  enough  to  believe  that  more  gen 
erations  than  are  now  behind  us  must  have 
passed  away  before  our  land  is  old  enough  to 


30  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

hear  without  a  start  such  tales  as  were  whis 
pered  of  Giulio  Colonna. 

When  the  century  was  still  young,  Pius  the 
Seventh  came  back  to  Rome,  and  with  him 
came  those  Romans  whom  the  storms  of  the 
Revolution  had  scattered  for  a  while.  Things 
were  to  be,  it  seemed,  as  they  had  been  before 
impious  philosophy  had  turned  away  from  sal 
vation  the  thousands  of  souls  who  had  risen 
against  the  Holy  Church.  But  the  old  sys 
tem  needed  more  vigorous  defence  than  it 
had  needed  in  the  quiet  olden  time.  Roman 
nobles  banded  themselves  together  to  protect 
the  Mother  Church  who  had  watched  over 
them  and  their  fathers  for  a  thousand  years. 
And  among  these  loyal  gentlemen  no  one  was 
more  loyal  or  more  active  than  the  Duke  Pietro 
Colonna,  elder  brother  of  Giulio,  and  head  of 
the  great  house  to  which  they  belonged. 

Pietro  Colonna  seems  to  have  been  an  earnest 
man,  not  without  mysticism  in  his  devotion  to 
the  church  from  which  the  fortune  of  his  race 
had  sprung  when  some  far-off  great-uncle  had 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  31 

been  made  pope,  centuries  ago.  Like  many 
earnest  men,  in  passionate  Italy  as  well  as  in 
our  more  phlegmatic  Northern  lauds,  he  gave 
himself  with  all  his  heart  to  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  truth.  And  having  given  his  whole 
heart  to  the  cause  of  the  Church,  he  had  nothing 
but  punctilious  politeness  left  for  the  beautiful 
duchess  to  whom  he  had  given  his  name.  Emilia 
Colonna,  by  birth  remotely  akin  to  him,  was  a 
wonder  even  in  Rome,  where  women  grand  as 
goddesses  have  dwelt  since  the  days  when  the 
Sabine  beauties  came  to  add  their  graces  to 
the  stout  stock  that  had  taken  root  by  the 
Tiber.  The  splendor  of  her  face  and  form 
has  not  yet  died  out  of  Roman  drawing-rooms, 
where  reflections  of  it  still  gleam  faintly  in  the 
words  of  old  men  who  knew  those  that  knew 
her.  But  all  this  splendor  was  lost  on  solemn 
Duke  Pietro,  who  thought  of  nothing  but  the 
grandeur  of  the  Church,  and  the  wicked  plots  of 
the  Carbonari, — if,  indeed,  the  Liberal  plotters 
of  those  early  days  had  already  taken  the  name 
that  they  bore  in  times  nearer  our  own. 


32  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

A  Roman  woman  claims  more  than  formal 
homage  from  her  lord.  The  beautiful  Duchess 
Emilia  could  not  rest  content  with  the  courtesy 
of  her  patriotic  spouse.  At  least  so  thought 
the  people  of  her  time,  who  looked  about 
accordingly  to  see  whose  love,  of  all  those  who 
pressed  to  offer  her  their  love,  should  be  re 
warded  with  hers.  What  truth  lay  in  their 
conclusions  nobody  rightly  knew ;  but  all 
Rome  whispered,  with  no  word  of  contradic 
tion,  that  the  beautiful  duchess  found  close 
at  hand  the  devotion  that  she  vainly  looked 
for  in  her  marriage.  The  gallant  Giulio,  men 
said,  played  with  her  the  part  that  Paolo  played 
with  Francesca  in  the  Rimini  that  Dante  knew. 
And  so  Rome  lived  and  loved  and  plotted,  as 
our  century  grew  older. 

The  Liberal  poison,  whose  workings  gave  the 
Duke  Pietro  so  much  concern,  ran  deep  in 
Roman  life.  There  were  many  gallant  gentle 
men  to  rally  with  him  about  the  standard  of  the 
Church.  But  there  were  others  who  dreamed 
already  of  an  Italy,  dearer  to  them  than  any 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  33 

church,  or  than  any  of  the  states  that  then 
divided  the  country.  There  were  men  who 
told  one  another  in  whispers  what  Macchia- 
velli  had  written  three  hundred  years  before : 
"  In  great  part,  all  the  wars  which  foreign 
hordes  have  waged  against  Italy  have  been 
caused  by  these  Roman  priests;  for  the  most 
part,  all  the  barbarians  who  have  surged  in 
upon  us  have  been  called  hither  by  them.  And 
even  in  our  own  time  they  do  their  old  work; 
and  that  it  is  which  keeps  Italy  disunited  and 
feeble." 1  There  were  gentlemen  in  Rome  whose 
hearts  were  full  of  words  like  these.  To  speak 
them  out,  meant  exile  or  life-long  prison ;  so 
they  kept  them  back,  and  whispered  and  plotted. 
Who  they  were,  none  but  themselves  knew, 
except  perhaps,  Duke  Pietro's  spies.  But  if 
rumor  did  not  lie,  Giulio  could  have  told  you. 

1  "  Tutte  le  guerre  che  furono  da'  barbari  fatte  in  Italia,  f u- 
rono  in  maggior  parte  dai  Pontefici  causate  ;  e  tutti  i  barbari 
che  quella  inondarono,  furono  il  piii  delle  volte  da  quelli  chi- 
amati.  II  qual  modo  di  procedere  dura  ancora  in  questi  nostri 
tempi ;  il  che  ha  tenuto  e  tiene  1'  Italia  disunita  ed  inferma." 
—  Istorie  Florentine,  Book  L 

3 


34  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

In  Duke  Pietro's  own  home,  men  said,  were 
hatched  the  plots  that  he  would  give  his  life  to 
suppress. 

One  night  came  a  piece  of  news  that  thrilled 
through  the  city  in  an  hour.  Pietro  Colonna 
had  been  stabbed  to  death  as  he  was  step 
ping  from  his  carriage  at  his  own  door.  The 
Duchess  Emilia,  who  sat  above,  had  uttered 
no  cry.  Cold  as  marble,  she  had  sat  in  the 
flickering  light  looking  down  at  his  dead 
form.  Then  she  had  bidden  them  carry  him 
into  his  palace ;  and,  with  a  face  as  white 
as  the  dead  man's,  she  had  mounted  to  her 
own  apartment.  There  she  had  turned  about 
once,  bidding  the  servants  send  Giulio  to  her, 
when  he  should  come ;  and  with  no  more 
words  had  passed  within  her  doors.  The  news, 
as  I  have  said,  spread  like  fire  through  the 
city.  It  reached  Giulio  no  one  knew  where. 
He  came  hurrying  to  the  palace  door ;  with  a 
tremor  in  his  voice,  he  asked  if  the  tragic  re 
port  were  true.  When  they  told  him  that  it 
was,  and  that  the  widowed  duchess  waited  for 


The  Duehess  Emilia.  35 

him  above,  his  eyes  seemed  to  start  from  his 
head,  and  he  lifted  up  his  arms  and  shook 
his  clinched  fists  in  the  air.  Then  he  turned 
and  hurried  away.  He  never  spoke  to  Emilia 
again.  Within  a  month  he  had  given  himself 
to  the  Church. 

Meanwhile,  the  story  goes,  she  sat  waiting 
for  him  who  did  not  come.  Finally,  late  in 
the  night  she  rang  and  asked  if  he  had  sent 
her  no  word.  When  she  heard  that  he  was 
come  and  gone,  she  bade  her  servants  leave 
her,  with  a  firm  voice.  But  before  they  had 
passed  her  door  they  heard  a  fall ;  and  turn 
ing  about,  they  found  her  on  the  floor  sense 
less.  From  that  she  went  into  a  fever,  and 
for  days  they  thought  that  she  would  follow 
the  Pietro  whose  name  she  kept  calling  in  ac 
cents  of  warning  and  of  terror.  Bat  she  rallied, 
and  lived  on  in  Rome,  —  more  beautiful  than 
ever,  save  that  her  marble  face  grew  to  have 
the  hardness  of  marble.  What  her  life  was 
the  scandals  of  the  time  will  tell  those  who 
choose  to  know.  At  last  her  passions  and  her 


36  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

sorrows  came  to  an  end.  She  died,  and  was 
'laid  by  the  Duke  Pietro's  side  in  the  marble 
chapel  where  the  Colonnas  lie.  And  Monsig- 
nor  Giulio,  already  famed  for  his  holiness,  came 
and  said  a  mass  for  her  sinful  soul. 

And  now  the  Duchess  Emilia  had  been  dead 
for  well  on  to  five  and  twentj7  years.  The 
Colonna  fortune  had  not  prospered  meantime. 
The  old  Cardinal,  in  his  great  palace,  thought 
little  of  money  matters ;  but  those  who  lived 
about  him  found  that  money  matters  necessarily 
occupied  a  good  deal  of  their  attention.  The 
household  was  not  large.  There  was  Monsignor 
del  Bardi,  who  devoted  himself  to  His  Emi 
nence  with  a  singleness  of  purpose  accountable 
for  only  on  the  supposition  that  he  saw  at  the 
ond  of  his  labors  a  vision  of  a  red  hat.  There, 
too,  in  apartments  of  their  own,  were  the  Coun 
tess  Barbarini,  a  child  of  the  Cardinal's  dead 
sister,  and  her  daughter,  the  Contessina  Filippa. 
These  the  old  man  had  taken  to  his  home  when 
they  were  left  with  no  fortune  at  the  death 
of  the  Count,  whose  life  and  money  had  been 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  37 

dissipated  in  cards  and  other  frivolities.  In 
return  the  Countess,  whose  practical  qualities 
rivalled  those  of  the  smiling  chaplain,  looked 
after  what  was  left  of  the  Colonna  fortune  with 
no  mean  skill.  This  Countess  had  been  a  beauty 
in  her  day ;  and  the  Contessina  Filippa,  the 
only  other  member  of  the  household,  was  said  to 
be  as  beautiful  a  girl  as  ever  grew  into  woman 
hood  in  a  Roman  palace. 

Of  course,  they  did  not  need  the  whole  palace 
for  themselves.  So,  reserving  two  great  suites 
and  a  picture-gallery,  renowned  both  for  its 
merits  and  for  the  fact  that  the  foreign  sight 
seers  who  penetrated  almost  everywhere  never 
penetrated  there,  the  Countess  and  Monsignor 
between  them  had  long  ago  managed  to  let  the 
rest  of  the  vast  building  to  a  motley  array  of 
lodgers,  native  and  foreign,  noble  and  ignoble. 
Among  these  lodgers  was  Cleveland,  whose 
studio  was  not  far  off.  And  when  Beverly 
came  to  Rome  the  artist  insisted  that  he  too 
should  take  quarters  in  the  Colonna  palace, 
where  an  apartment  happened  to  be  vacant. 


IV. 


TTROM  this  time  on,  I  shall  tell  most  of 
Beverly's  story  in  his  own  words  as  they 
were  written  in  his  journal.  The  passages  I 
shall  quote  are  not  always  consecutive  ;  the 
second  in  this  chapter,  for  example,  comes  some 
days  after  the  first ;  the  third  some  days  after 
the  second.  But  it  was  his  habit  to  use  so  few 
dates  that  I  have  thought  it  useless  to  insert 
any.  When  I  come  to  a  passage  which  it 
seems  best  to  omit,  I  shall  indicate  the  omission 
by  a  space  and  some  stars.  How  much  time 
has  elapsed  between  any  two  quotations  I  often 
know  as  little  as  the  reader. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 
If  I  am  ever  to  be  happy  I  ought  to  be  happy 
here.     I  live  in  a  Roman  palace,  of  which,  so 
far  as  my  own  rooms  are  concerned,  —  and  my 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  39 

apartment  is  large  enough  for  a  prince,  —  I  am 
master.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  me  from 
giving  myself  up  to  the  delights  of  Rome ; 
and  these  delights  are  no  common  ones.  Here, 
all  about  me,  are  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  world 
that  I  have  dreamed  about  ever  since  I  was  a 
child.  Here,  too,  are  marble  churches  and 
palaces  and  fountains ;  here  is  the  muddy 
Tiber  with  its  bridges ;  here  are  villas  and 
gardens,  and  columns  from  which  the  saints 
have  toppled  down  the  brazen  emperors;  here 
are  statues  and  great  paintings,  and  a  thousand 
other  nameless  things  which  carry  me  at  will 
through  the  whole  length  of  the  Middle  Ages 
to  our  own  days.  With  a  few  steps  I  can 
wander  out  of  this  troublesome  modern  time 
into  a  limitless  past,  of  which  nothing  is  left 
but  the  loveliness.  It  is  the  sin  and  the 
tumult  and  the  passion  of  human  life  that  die. 
Enshrined  in  art  the  beauty  of  the  old  days 
lives,  and  it  will  live  forever.  Here  in  Rome 
you  have  no  excuse  for  thinking  of  mean  and 
hateful  things.  Each  palace  door,  each  church 


40  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

porch,  with  its  curtain  ready  to  swing  aside  at 
a  touch,  leads  you  into  some  old  world  that 
has  been  purified  of  all  that  is  not  good. 

If  I  want  modern  life,  too,  I  have  only  to 
pass  a  staircase,  and  there  I  am  at  Cleveland's 
door.  He  and  Cousin  Abby  do  all  they  can  to 
welcome  me.  He  even  leaves  his  painting  and 
walks  with  me  about  this  marvellous  town, 
which  has  grown  as  familiar  to  him  as  old 
Boston  is  to  me.  He  can  lead  me  straight  to 
the  things  that  all  men  wish  to  see,  just  as  I 
could  lead  him  to  Copp's  Hill,  where  I  used 
to  ponder  over  the  epitaphs  and  the  carved 
arms  of  the  old  Tories  who  went  away  from 
New  England  when  the  King  was  driven  out. 
And  Cousin  Abby  has  been  very  kind.  She 
has  saved  me  the  trouble  of  engaging  servants, 
by  lending  me  some  of  hers  ;  and  she  insists 
that  I  shall  dine  with  her  every  night. 

Yet  here  in  Rome  I  find  stealing  over  me 
that  old  feeling  which  I  had  hoped  to  leave 
behind  me  in  the  cloudy  North.  What  right 
have  I  to  be  here,  passing  in  listless  pleasure 


Tfie  Duchess  Emilia.  41 

the  hours  that  have  been  given  me  to  pass  on 
earth?  What  meaning  has  my  life?  What 
right  have  I  to  live  a  life  that  has  no  meaning, 
a  life  that  shall, leave  on  the  world  no  trace 
of  its  passing?  Blessed  are  the  obscure,  they 
say.  Blessed  may  they  be,  with  all  my  heart. 
I  have  no  wish  to  make  a  name,  as  they  call  it. 
But  there  is  something  —  I  have  always  known 
that  there  is  something  in  this  world  that  no 
one  but  I  can  do.  And  the  time  is  passing. 
Thus  to  idle  is  to  disobey  the  voice  of  duty, 
of  conscience.  Awake!  Be  doing!  it  cries  to 
me  day  and  night.  I  start  up,  longing  for  one 
word  of  counsel.  Whither  shall  I  turn  ?  There 
is  no  answer. 

Here  in  Rome  I  feel  these  things  more  deeply, 
I  think,  than  I  have  ever  felt  them  before.  Per 
haps  a  strange  thing  that  is  happening  to  me 
makes  them  seem  more  real.  I  am  haunted. 
Day  after  day,  hour  after  hour,  there  sweeps 
over  me  the  sense  that  I  am  in  a  land  that  I 
have  known  before.  Everywhere  are  vague 
memories,  stretching  towards  me  from  a  past  — 


42  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

a  far-off  past  of  mine  —  that  has  to  do,  I  know 
not  how,  with  this  Home  through  which  I  walk. 
These  ruins,  these  churches,  these  fountains 
have  known  me  of  old.  They  have  known 
more.  They  have  known  some  secret  that  I 
long  to  remember,  a  secret  that  fled  away 
from  me  in  the  past  that  had  vanished  before 
memory  began.  I  have  forgotten;  but  Rome 
remembers.  And  the  sparkle  of  her  sunshine, 
and  the  rich  mantling  of  her  shadows,  and  the 
misty  spray  of  her  fountains,  and  the  rustling 
of  her  trees,  and  the  breath  of  her  flowers, 
and  the  placid  faces  of  her  marble  men,  all 
strive  to  tell  me  what  I  should  know  without 
the  telling ;  but  they  tell  it  in  a  strange  tongue, 
and  I  cannot  grasp  their  meaning. 

I  have  talked  of  this  to  Cleveland  and  to 
Cousin  Abby.  I  am  just  come  from  them. 

"  I  am  sure,  Richard,"  said  Cousin  Abby, 
"that  your  digestion  is  out  of  order.  I  shall 
send  you  up  some  rhubarb.  I  always  keep  rhu 
barb  on  hand.  It  is  quite  harmless,  and  —  " 

"Excuse  me,  my  dear,"  interrupted  Cleve- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  43 

land,  "but  I  can't  help  observing  that  you  are 
talking  nonsense.  The  thing  is  simple  enough, 
Beverly.  It  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  your 
memory  of  school-books.  I  felt  something  very 
like  it  when  I  came  here  first,  only  it  took  me 
differently.  It  struck  me  as  irresistibly  absurd 
that  places  where  I  could  sit  and  smoke  my 
cigar  unless  a  snuffy  priest  told  me  to  throw  it 
away,  should  have  the  impudence  to  bear  the 
names  that  were  beaten  into  me  at  the  Latin 
School.  I  am  quite  an  authority  on  corporal 
punishment  still.  I  can  trace  the  ideas  that 
olive-wood  still  suggests  in  my  mind,  to  a  ruler 
that  lay  on-  the  desk  of  a  certain  usher,  whom 
I  have  painted  in  various  unpleasant  characters 
during  the  last  few  years." 

"I  cannot  feel  that  you  are  right,"  I  said, 
"  I  have  never  learned  any  mysteries  about 
Rome." 

"  I  never  supposed  that  you  had,"  said  he. 
"  The  human  mind  is  so  constructed  that  what 
is  once  in  it  makes  the  deuce  of  a  bother  in 
getting  out  again  ;  and  when  it  has  disappeared 


44  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

as  a  memory  it  turns  up  again  as  a  mystery. 
Besides,  when  you  are  out  of  sorts  — " 

"  That  is  just  what  I  said,"  put  in  Cousin 
Abby,  —  "  he  needs  rhubarb." 

"  All  he  needs,"  said  Cleveland,  "  is  to  get 
his  nerves  in  order.  He  smokes  too  much." 

I  hardly  smoke  at  all ;  and  told  him  so. 

"  You  don't  smoke  enough,  then,"  said  he  ; 
"have  a  cigar." 

I  took  one.  It  was  very  good.  Perhaps  he 
is  right. 

How  a  human  face  sometimes  flashes  into  a 
corner  of  one's  mind  that  seems  to  have  been 
kept  empty  on  purpose  for  it.  This  afternoon 
I  walked  out  with  Cleveland  on  the  Pincian  Hill. 
He  wished  me  to  see  the  view  of  Saint  Peter's. 

"  On  a  good  afternoon,"  he  said,  "  it  is  some 
thing  fine.  You  look  over  the  whole  city,  and 
see  the  dome  swimming  in  an  ocean  of  blue 
glory.  Then  you  get  behind  some  trees,  which 
make  a  tremendous  shadow  for  a  foreground. 
It  is  theatrical,  of  course  ;  but  sane  people  like 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  45 

the  theatrical.  Besides,  everybody  goes  to  the 
Pincio  of  an  afternoon." 

So  we  went  to  the  Pincian  Hill.  Cousin 
Abby  would  not  go  with  us.  She  rarely  goes 
out.  She  cannot  see,  she  says,  why  she  should 
if  she  does  not  feel  like  it ;  and  she  is  sure  that 
there  is  no  pleasure  for  her  in  looking  at  any 
number  of  people  whom  she  does  not  know  and 
does  not  care  to.  So  we  left  her  with  some 
worsted  work  that  seems  to  satisfy  most  of 
the  wants  of  her  soul ;  and  walked  together 
in  those  marvellous  gardens  that  look  down  on 
Rome. 

All  the  world  was  there,  Cleveland  said.  I 
suppose  it  was.  At  another  time  I  might  have 
had  eyes  and  thoughts  for  it.  Indeed,  at  first 
I  thought  I  should  have  them  to-day.  But 
suddenly  in  the  passing  throng  I  saw  a  woman, 
—  a  young  girl  I  suppose  I  ought  to  call  her; 
after  that  I  saw  nothing  else.  She  had  a  face 
and  form  that  seemed  to  have  gathered  to 
themselves  all  the  riches  of  life  and  beauty 
that  have  been  gathering  in  Rome  since  the 


46  The  Duchess  J?milia. 

world  began.  As  she  walked,  I  felt  more 
than  I  saw  that  hers  was  such  a  form  as  the 
women  of  old  unveiled  before  Grecian  sculptors. 
As  the  sunlight  fell  on  her  cheek,  it  kindled 
there  such  colors  as  the  masters  of  painting 
have  treasured  up  in  the  canvases  that  you 
see  only  here.  It  was  as  if  one  of  those  mar 
ble  women  of  old  had  awakened  into  all  the 
warmth  and  passion  of  living  human  beauty. 
For  the  flash  of  her  great  eyes  and  the  deep 
breath  that  came  through  her  red  and  parted 
lips  told  of  the  rich  life-blood  that  throbbed 
in  her  veins. 

I  looked  at  her  as  I  should  have  looked  at  a 
goddess.  I  knew  nothing  except  that  she  was 
before  me.  Then  she  turned  her  eyes  toward 
me,  and  I  forgot  to  take  mine  away.  Just  then 
Cleveland  looked  up  and  bowed.  Mechanically 
I  did  the  same ;  and  stood  with  bared  head  as 
she  passed  with  her  companion,  —  a  stately  lady, 
of  whom  I  noticed  nothing  more.  When  they 
had  passed,  and  I  had  regained  myself  a  little, 
I  asked  Cleveland  her  name. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  47 

"Haven't  you  seen  them  before?"  he  an 
swered,  "  Why,  that  is  our  landlady,  the 
Countess  Barbarini,  and  the  Contessina  Filippa. 
She  is  devilish  handsome,  is  n't  she  ?  I  should 
like  to  paint  her." 

And  he  —  an  artist,  whose  work  we  of  New- 
England  think  inspired  —  could  find  no  better 
words  than  these,  could  feel  no  deeper  thing 
than  that  this  woman  among  women  might  serve 
him  in  his  trade.  I  said  no  more.  As  soon  as 
I  could  leave  him,  I  came  home.  As  I  passed 
up  the  stone  stairs,  they  seemed  unlike  the  stairs 
that  I  have  trodden  here  before;  for  they,  no 
doubt,  have  been  pressed  by  her  feet  and  brushed 
by  the  hem  of  her  garments.  I  dined  alone. 
Since  then  I  have  been  sitting  in  my  own  rooms, 
in  dim  candle-light,  with  no  thought  save  for 
that  wondrous  form  that  has  burned  itself  into 
my  mind. 

Filippa  !  Filippa !  I  have  caught  myself  whis 
pering,  in  no  sentimental  lover's  tone,  for  she 
has  not  kindled  in  me  the  silly  love  that  one 
reads  about.  But  she  has  taken  her  place  in 


48  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

my  life,  along  with  the  Goddesses  of  Greece  and 
the  Virgins  of  this  marvellous  Italy.  To  see, 
to  have  seen,  such  a  form  as  hers  makes  it  worth 
while  to  have  been  born. 

Filippa !  —  And  Cleveland  thinks  her  devilish 
handsome  and  would  like  to  paint  her ! 

Cleveland  is  so  good  to  me  that  I  feel  ashamed 
of  allowing  myself  to  think  and  to  write  down 
that  he  cannot  see  and  feel  as  I  do  the  wonders 
of  Rome  and  the  beauties  of  life.  It  is  not  that 
I  am  a  finer  being  than  he,  I  feel  sure.  It  is 
only  that  he  is  full  of  occupation,  while  I  am  an 
idler.  He  has  no  time  to  play  with  his  dreams. 
I  have  no  other  thing  to  do.  And  so  I  soar  up 
into  all  sorts  of  clouds,  and  feel  much  offended 
when  Cleveland  reminds  me  that  he  is  walking 
on  solid  earth. 

To-day,  when  I  went  to  his  studio,  I  found 
with  him  a  sharp-faced  American,  deep  in  talk. 
Cleveland  introduced  me  to  the  man. 

"  Glad  to  meet  you,  sir,"  said  he,  shaking  my 
hand  until  I  shook  all  over ;  "  knew  your  father 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  49 

well.    You  ain't  engaged  in  manufacturing  your 
self,  are  you  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  I. 

"  Perhaps  you  are  in  the  art  business,  like 
your  friend  here  ?  " 

tk  I  am  not  in  any  business,"  I  said. 

•"  Ain't !  "  said  he,  with  an  air  of  disapproval, 
and  turned  back  to  Cleveland,  with  whom  he 
was  soon  deep  in  some  talk  that  sounded  like  a 
bargain. 

"  Well,  sir,"  he  said  at  last,  "  you  know  what 
such  things  are  worth,  and  I  don't.  What  I 
want  is  something  that  people  will  allow  to  be 
valuable,  and  I  'm  willing  to  pay.  No,  I  don't 
want  to  see  the  concern.  I  can't  tell  one  picture 
from  another  ;  but  if  folks  that  know  what 's 
what  say  that  this  one 's  the  thing,  go  ahead." 
And  with  a  nod  to  me  he  withdrew. 

If  I  were  an  artist,  such  a  fellow,  I  am  sure, 
would  upset  me  for  a  day.  I  was  silly  enough 
to  feel  annoyed  that  Cleveland  took  up  his 
brushes  and  calmly  went  to  work  as  soon  as  the 
door  was  closed. 

4 


50  TJie  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  that  aesthetic  person 
is  doing?"  he  asked,  after  a  while. 

"  I  have  no  idea,"  I  answered. 

"  Something  in  agreeable  contrast  to  himself," 
said  Cleveland.  "He  is  buying  the  Colonna 
Titian.  It  delights  me,  do  you  know,  to  think 
that  a  creature  like  that  should  have  happened 
to  be  the  means  of  getting  me  into  a  Roman 
gallery  that  hardly  anybody  in  Rome  has  seen, 
—  particularly  when  I  have  been  living  for  a 
couple  of  years  in  the  same  house  with  it.  The 
old  Cardinal,  you  know,  is  very  jealous  of  his 
pictures  ;  and  that  Florentine  priest  of  his  is 
clever  enough  to  know  that  things  you  can't 
see  are  more  talked  about  than  things  you  can. 
So  until  this  patron  of  art  came  along  with  the 
idea  of  giving  some  Yankee  museum  a  first-rate 
picture,  I  cooled  my  heels  at  His  Eminence's 
door  in  vain.  But  as  soon  as  they  found  that 
I  really  meant  business  they  were  all  smiles.  I 
am  going  to  take  you  there  in  a  day  or  two. 
I  am  saving  it  for  a  bonne  louche.  After  the 
Colonna  gallery,  where  you  have  everything  to 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  51 

yourself,  all  the  others,  where  everybody  runs 
against  your  elbows,  are  intolerable.  There 
you  have  the  real  thing." 

And  as  he  painted,  I  sat  and  thought  how 
strange  a  world  this  is,  where  the  vulgar  osten 
tation  of  an  untaught  fellow  can  serve  to  open 
for  me  the  doors  of  that  marvellous  Roman 
girl,  who  passed  before  my  eyes  on  the  Pincian 
Hill. 


V. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

T  HAVE  seen  the  Colonna  gallery,  the  one 
-•-  great  collection  in  Rome  that  is  kept  secure 
from  the  crowd.  Surely  no  spot  is  better  worth 
guarding.  If  there  be  sacred  things  in  art,  if 
there  be  a  holiness  about  works  into  which  men 
have  poured  all  the  beauty  of  their  lives,  that 
holiness  is  here.  And  just  as  I  am  offended  to 
see  careless  travellers  tramp  through  churches 
where  they  would  disdain  to  kneel,  so  I  shrink 
from  passing  with  a  careless  company  the  works 
that  the  masters  have  left  us.  In  the  Colonna 
gallery  each  picture  seems  to  have  grown  in  its 
place  as  naturally  as  the  churches  of  Home,  or 
the  vines  that  wander  over  Roman  ruins  have 
grown  up  above  the  elder  city.  Each  one  is  in 
itself  a  new  glimpse  into  another  world,  —  a 
world  of  happiness  and  of  agony  vast  beyond 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  53 

words.  I  did  not  think  of  judging  these  mar 
vellous  things.  I  simply  looked  and  marvelled. 
And  in  the  end  I  was  as  one  who  has  seen  a  vi 
sion  ;  who  knows  that  he  has  been  swept  through 
endless  space  peopled  with  beings  grander  and 
sterner  than  men,  and  who  wakes  to  find  that 
memory  cannot  bear  the  burden,  that  it  can 
keep  for  him  only  the  fading  knowledge  that 
he  has  for  a  moment  known  things  too  holy  to 
be  profaned  by  common  human  thought. 

Yet  one  picture  I  cannot  forget,  perhaps 
because  it  is  to  be  carried  away  from  this  shrine 
where  it  has  been  treasured  for  three  hundred 
years.  It  is  the  Titian  which  Cleveland  is  buy 
ing.  It  shows  a  woman  seated  on  a  great  rock. 
At  her  feet  grow  flowers.  Behind  her  is  a  glo 
rious  landscape  where  fantastic  mountains  rise 
up  in  a  mist  of  blue  as  pure  as  a  sunny  ocean. 
Above  her  head  is  foliage  which  seems  to  rustle 
in  a  gentle  wind.  And  the  woman's  grand  form 
throbs  and  swells  in  every  part  with  the  full 
life-blood  of  old  Italy.  But  she  looks  at  none 
of  the  loveliness  that  is  about  her.  With  tear- 


54  The  Duchess  Umilia. 

swollen  eyes  and  trembling  lips  she  gazes  up 
towards  a  Heaven  that  her  sight  cannot  reach. 
The  agony  of  sin  that  may  never  be  undone, 
even  though  it  be  forgiven,  is  upon  her.  And 
it  should  seem  that  the  very  richness  of  the  life 
which  brought  her  to  that  sin  makes  the  agony 
greater,  even  as  it  strives  to  deaden  it,  to  whis 
per  back  her  thoughts  to  earth.  For  her  fingers 
grasp  a  skull.  It  is  Magdalene. 

I  looked  at  this  picture  in  silence.  For  the 
moment  I  hardly  saw  its  lines,  or  the  marvellous 
colors  that  Titian  wooed  from  the  skies  of  Ven 
ice.  My  heart  was  full  of  the  meaning  that  was 
beneath  them,  a  meaning  too  deep  for  words.  1 
thought  of  the  vastness  of  sin  in  this  world  that 
without  it  would  be  a  paradise  ;  of  the  vastness 
of  the  mercy  that  brings  men  even  through  sin  to 
peace  ;  of  the  vastness  of  the  agony  with  which 
that  peace  must  be  won.  In  this  world  few  are 
happy  enough  to  pass  through  life  unstained. 
Men  live  thoughtlessly  ;  and  one  day  they  awake 
to  find  memory  seared  with  thoughts  that  may 
not  be  washed  out.  Then,  in  the  moments  of 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  55 

solitude  that  come  to  us  more  and  more  as  life 
goes  on,  we  shrink  from  the  self  with  whom 
more  and  more  we  must  live,  the  self  with  whom 
at  length  we  must  pass  out  alone  into  the  solitude 
of  death.  Blessed,  verily,  are  the  pure  in  heart. 

Cleveland  was  beside  me.     He  spoke  at  last. 

"  Wonderful,  is  n't  it  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Wonderful !  "  I  answered. 

"  A  few  things  like  that  will  go  a  good  way 
to  civilize  the  Yankees,"  he  went  on.  "  Did  you 
ever  see  such  color  ?  We  can't  do  anything  like 
it  nowadays.  I  comfort  myself  with  wondering 
how  much  of  it  is  art  and  how  much  is  chemis 
try.  After  all,  nothing  but  time  can  give  tone  to 
painting.  I  have  left  some  colors  at  the  bottom 
of  a  picture  or  two  for  which  I  have  great  hopes 
in  the  twenty-second  century." 

I  said  nothing  more.  Cleveland's  words  had 
called  me  back  to  myself.  They  had  called  me 
back  at  the  same  time  to  the  strange  thoughts 
which  had  filled  my  mind  when  I  first  crossed 
this  threshold.  The  feeling  that  I  had  known 
of  old  the  things  which  I  saw  had  swept  over 


56  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

me  more  strongly  than  ever.  Cleveland  has 
told  me  often  that  he  is  the  only  stranger  who 
is  permitted  to  come  here.  In  moments  of  sober 
thought  I  know  that  he  speaks  the  truth  ;  but 
sober  thought  will  not  always  come.  As  I 
looked  at  the  great  Titian,  and  as  I  gazed  up 
at  the  ceiling  where  pagan  gods  sit  on  rolling 
clouds  and  smile  at  one  another  across  the 
yawning  cracks  that  have  opened  in  the  plaster, 
there  came  to  me  the  overwhelming  thought 
that  I  had  seen  all  these  things  before,  that  I 
had  known  them  well.  How  I  had  known 
them  and  when  I  could  not  tell.  But  with  the 
feeling  that  I  had  known  them  there  came  a 
great  sense  of  horror,  of  agony  such  as  Mag 
dalene  felt  as  she  sat  and  gazed  heavenward. 
Such  a  feeling  I  never  knew  before.  I  trem 
bled.  I  seized  Cleveland's  arm. 

"  Take  me  away,"  I  said. 

"  There  is  a  fine  Domenichino  that  we  have 
not  seen  yet,"  said  he ;  "  it  won't  do  to  waste  a 
chance  like  this." 

"  Take   me    away,"    I  said.     "  I    have  seen 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  57 

enough."  And  I  almost  forced  him  to  lead 
me  away. 

As  we  passed  out  a  great  carriage  drove  into 
the  court-yard  of  the  palace. 

"  By  Jove  !  "  said  Cleveland,  "  here  is  His 
Eminence.  We  are  in  luck.  You  might  have 
stayed  here  ten  years  and  never  have  seen  him. 
Stand  aside  and  look  at  him.  Ten  to  one,  he 
will  be  the  next  pope." 

So  we  stood  at  the  head  of  the  great  stair 
case  and  watched  two  figures  slowly  ascending 
toward  us.  One  was  a  tall  priest  with  sharp 
eyes,  and  clean-cut  features  set  in  a  smile  such 
as  hides  the  thought  that  may  be  behind  it. 
He  walked  with  a  firm  step.  On  his  arm 
leaned  the  other,  a  bent  old  churchman  who 
moved  with  the  infirmity  of  age.  His  head 
was  bowed  down,  as  if  the  toil  of  climbing  the 
broad  stairway  was  almost  beyond  his  power. 
Yet  with  all  his  weakness  there  was  about  him 
such  an  air  of  dignity  as  I  had  never  seen  be 
fore.  I  watched  him  come  up  toward  us  with 
a  feeling  like  awe. 


58  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  He  is  a  grand  old  fellow,  is  n't  he  ?  "  whis 
pered  Cleveland.  "  He  is  tougher  than  he 
looks.  He  is  younger,  too.  It 's  not  years 
that  have  aged  him,  so  much  as  fasting  and 
prayer  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  He  has  put 
himself  through  enough  of  that,  they  say,  to 
kill  an  ordinary  man  twice  over.  But  he 
hopes  to  be  pope,  you  know,  and  hope  is  the 
elixir  of  life." 

By  this  time  they  were  close  to  us.  Cleve 
land  bowed  low,  and  I  followed  his  example. 
The  old  Cardinal  bent  his  head  in  return,  and 
lifted  his  hand  with  a  gesture  of  blessing.  As 
he  did  so  he  turned  his  face  toward  us,  and  I 
saw  it  for  the  first  time.  For  the  first  time  it 
must  have  been,  yet  as  I  looked  upon  that  face, 
pale  and  thin,  and  trembling  with  age,  and 
marked  in  every  line  with  a  gentleness  and 
a  holiness  such  as  I  had  not  dreamed  that 
human  features  could  possess,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  in  some  far-off  time  I  had  known  him,  too, 
even  as  I  had  known  his  grand  dwelling.  The 
shudder,  the  horror  that  I  had  felt  in  the 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  59 

presence  of  the  Magdalene  came  upon  me  again. 
I  gazed  at  the  old  man  with  what  must  have 
seemed  brutal  rudeness.  I  could  not  move  my 
eyes  from  his  face. 

As  I  gazed  at  him,  he  turned  his  eyes  toward 
me.  Then  he  stopped  for  a  moment  and  gazed 
at  me  with  a  look  that  was  almost  like  a  recog 
nition.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  too  felt  some 
thing  of  the  mystery  that  was  upon  me.  His 
face  grew  strangely  earnest.  His  eyes  seemed 
to  pierce  me  through  and  through.  For  a  mo 
ment  I  thought  that  he  was  about  to  speak. 
But  this  was  only  for  a  moment.  He  raised 
his  hand  once  more  in  blessing. 

"  Pax  vobiscum"  he  muttered  in  a  low 
voice.  Then,  leaning  more  heavily  on  the 
arm  of  his  companion,  he  passed  on,  and  we 
stood  and  watched  his  tottering  steps  and  his 
bent  shoulders. 

I  cannot  sleep.  I  have  lain  awake,  it  seemed 
for  hours.  Now  I  have  risen.  I  have  tried  to 
read  by  the  flickering  candle-light  that  makes 


60  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

these  great  rooms  seem  too  mysterious  to  be 
dwelt  in  by  men.  The  words  meant  nothing. 
I  flung  my  book  aside.  My  mind  is  full  of 
strange  thoughts,  —  of  the  knowledge  that  I  ain 
here  on  earth  for  some  purpose  which  I  cannot 
see,  the  knowledge  that  has  haunted  me  so  long. 
But  now  at  last,  as  I  strain  my  brain  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  things  that  are  hidden  from 
me,  I  begin  to  see  something  more  than  the 
smoky  clouds  that  writhe  about  in  that  uncanny 
world  which  men  see  when  their  eyes  are  closed. 
I  see  the  great  Magdalene  gleaming  through  the 
cloudy  mist  in  all  the  passionate  glory  that  Titian 
has  wrapped  about  her.  I  see,  too,  the  thin  old 
Cardinal,  gazing  at  me  with  eyes  that  tell  of 
things  that  as  yet  I  do  not  know.  I  stretch  out 
my  arms.  I  hurry  toward  these  forms.  And 
the  smoky  clouds  writhe  and  curl,  and  I  know 
not  whither  I  go  nor  what  I  am.  But  still  I 
am  drawn  on  toward  what  I  was  born  to  do. 
And  before  me  I  see  waiting  in  the  future, 
beckoning  me  on,  these  shapes  that  in  life  I  have 
never  seen  before  to-day.  What  is  there  that 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  61 

binds  them  to  me,  that  binds  me  to  them  ? 
Whither  do  they  lead  me  on?  I  cannot  tell. 
But  I  cannot  sleep.  I  cannot  forget.  I  cannot 
think. 

To-day,  when  I  was  weary  with  the  sleepless 
night  through  which  I  had  watched,  came  word 
that  the  Cardinal  Colonna  would  deign  to  see 
me.  The  message  surprised  me.  They  say 
that  he  keeps  himself  hidden  from  the  world, 
that  few  may  pass  his  threshold  even  of  those 
whose  names  should  give  them  a  right  to  do  so. 
Yet,  after  all,  my  surprise  was  not  so  great  as 
I  should  have  looked  for.  As  I  made  my  way 
toward  him,  it  seemed  as  if  I  was  going  through 
places  where  I  had  been  before  ;  as  if  the  stream 
of  my  life  was  carrying  me  with  it  whither  it 
was  used  to  flow. 

I  found  him  in  a  great  room,  hung  with  faded 
tapestry.  He  sat  in  a  large  chair,  carved  with 
strange  figures.  Satyrs  grinned  on  the  arms ; 
and  his  long,  thin  fingers  played  about  their 
shaggy  heads,  as  he  looked  upon  me  with  the 


62  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

same  deep  eyes  that  had  burned  themselves  into 
my  memory  when  I  saw  him  first.  When  I 
came  to  him  he  was  not  alone.  The  tall  priest 
was  there,  whom  I  had  seen  with  him  before. 
His  name,  they  tell  me,  is  Monsignor  dei 
Bardi ;  he  is  a  Florentine  as  wily  as  his  old 
countrymen  of  whom  Macchiavelli  writes.  He 
stepped  toward  me  with  the  fixed  smile  that 
never  leaves  his  hard  face,  and  led  me  forward 
to  present  me  to  His  Eminence.  Another  man 
was  taking  his  leave,  a  wiry,  dapper  little 
creature,  with  a  bald  head  and  much  vivacity 
of  manner.  This,  said  Monsignor,  was  the 
Prince  Palchi,  a  rich  gentleman  of  Rome.  As 
I  came  in  he  pressed  his  lips  upon  the  sapphire 
ring  of  the  Cardinal,  and  passed  out,  ignoring 
me  as  I  might  have  ignored  a  child.  Then, 
when  he  was  gone,  His  Eminence  turned  to 
me. 

"You  are  welcome  to  Rome,"  he  said.  He 
spoke  in  French,  and  the  words  came  hard  ; 
his  manner  had  the  stiffness  that  comes  when 
men  speak  a  language  in  which  they  cannot 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  63 

think.  But  in  spite  of  this  his  presence  lost 
no  jot  of  its  dignity.  In  our  little  New  Eng 
land  we  laugh  at  the  greatness  of  the  Old 
World  as  a  fiction  of  the  past.  We  laugh  at 
it  until  we  grow  to  think  it  a  jest.  When  we 
are  brought  face  to  face  with  it  we  are  over 
whelmed  with  our  presumption,  like  the  scoffer 
in  the  old  story  who  found  himself  at  last 
embarking  in  the  boat  of  Charon. 

I  stood  in  confusion  for  a  moment.  Then  I 
stepped  forward  to  kiss  his  holy  ring  as  I  had 
seen  the  Roman  do.  To  such  a  man  as  this  no 
homage  could  be  too  reverent.  But  he  drew 
back  his  hand  with  a  sort  of  shrinking. 

"You  need  not  pay  me  the  honor  that  you 
have  seen  the  Prince  Palchi  pay  me,"  he  said. 
"That  is  due  to  my  office,  not  to  me.  And 
you,  they  tell  me,  are  of  another  faith." 

I  muttered  some  words  that  told  him  that  I 
am  a  Unitarian.  I  suppose  I  am ;  yet  when 
I  compare  the  faint  thing  we  call  religion  with 
the  grand  church  which  declares  itself  true 
everlastingly,  everywhere,  for  all  men,  I  am 


64  TJie  Duchess  Emilia. 

not  proud  to  own  it.  We  are  half-hearted 
Christians,  we  of  New  England. 

"  That  shall  not  stand  between  us,"  he  said. 
"  I  have  sent  for  you  because  I  wish  to  know 
you  as  you  are." 

I  could  say  nothing.  "Why  he  should  wish  to 
know  me  I  could  not  tell ;  yet  it  seemed  right 
that  he  should.  For  in  moments  when  I  do  not 
pause  to  think,  I  find  myself  fancying  that  there 
has  been  a  dreamy  old  time  when  he  has  already 
known  me,  and  when  I  have  known  him  better 
than  I  know  myself.  I  stood  still. 

Meanwhile,  the  Florentine  priest  stood  by. 
I  felt  that  he  was  looking  at  me,  though  I 
hardly  turned  my  eyes  toward  him.  I  felt 
that  he  was  studying  me,  and  that  behind  that 
thin  smile  of  his  he  was  trying  to  make  out 
what  manner  of  creature  his  master  had  a  fancy 
to  know.  He  could  not  see  the  bond  that  drew 
us  together.  Of  that  I  felt  sure  ;  for  there  are 
things  that  can  never  be  seen  by  men  who  use 
the  mind  alone.  Truly  craftiness  flings  a  veil 
across  the  eyes  of  the  crafty ;  and  men  who 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  65 

would  see  what  surrounds  them  in  this  great 
mystery  of  life  must  give  themselves  up  to  the 
seeing,  nor  ever  ask  themselves  the  wherefore 
of  what  they  see.  Yet  though  the  priest  stood 
without  the  secret  he  wished  to  penetrate,  his 
presence  troubled  me.  It  troubled  the  old 
Cardinal,  too.  He  turned  to  the  priest  and 
bade  him  leave  us.  Whereat  Monsignor,  never 
changing  his  smile,  bowed  and  withdrew.  But 
though  he  changed  no  muscle,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  I  could  feel  the  spite  with  which  he  left 
us  to  an  interview  of  which  he  could  not  guess 
the  purpose.  And  as  he  passed  out  I  heard 
the  click  of  his  snuff-box. 

Then  we  were  left  alone,  looking  at  one 
another ;  and  the  Cardinal  Colonna  was  as  full 
of  nameless  trouble  as  was  I.  For  as  he  bade 
me  sit  in  a  stiff  chair  that  stood  near,  his  voice 
trembled  with  an  emotion  like  that  which  quiv 
ered  through  me.  Then  he  sat  silent  for  a 
while  ;  at  last  he  spoke  very  slowly. 

"  They  tell  me  that  you  have  never  been  in 
Rome  before,"  he  said.     "Is  it  true?" 
5 


66  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

I  answered  him  in  Italian,  I  cannot  tell 
why.  We  had  spoken  before  in  French ;  but 
now  the  French  words  would  not  come  to  my 
lips. 

"  You  speak  our  language,"  he  exclaimed, 
with  quick  nervousness ;  "  then  you  must  have 
been  here  before." 

I  told  him  how  lovingly  I  had  learned  his 
tongue  in  my  own  home  ;  how  it  had  come 
to  me  like  something  which  I  had  known  of 
old,  just  as  Rome  comes  now. 

"  Strange,"  he  muttered,  half  to  himself. 
"  In  your  infancy,  in  your  childhood,  perhaps, 
you  were  brought  here.  Memory  has  deep 
hiding-places." 

I  told  him  that  until  a  few  months  ago  I  had 
never  left  New  England  ;  that  my  parents  before 
me  had  never  left  it. 

"  Strange,  very  strange,"  he  said  again. 
And  then  he  asked  me  many  questions  about 
myself,  which  showed  me  that  in  some  way  he 
had  learned  what  little  there  is  to  know  of  my 
history.  He  had  learned  how  I  was  born  in 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  67 

that  far-off  Boston  which  seems  to  me  now  like 
a  shadowy  town  in  some  unreal  world;  how 
I  grew  up  there,  an  only  child ;  how  my 
parents  were  dead ;  how,  at  the  bidding  of  my 
kinsfolk,  I  was  come  here  for  the  first  time ; 
how  I  was  filled  with  the  charm  of  Italy  ;  how 
Rome  seemed  to  me  haunted  with  memories. 
As  he  asked  me  if  each  of  these  things  were 
true,  I  answered  him  that  they  were,  with 
more  and  more  marvel  how  he  could  know 
them. 

"  And  these  memories  that  haunt  you  here," 
he  asked  at  last,  "  what  are  they  like?  Joyous 
or  sorrowful  ?  " 

Then  I  told  him,  in  such  words  as  would 
come  to  me,  how  these  strange  feelings  came 
surging  upon  me  like  dark  mists,  the  shape  of 
which  I  could  not  know ;  how  they  blinded 
my  mind,  and  filled  me  more  and  more  with 
trembling,  I  knew  not  at  what ;  how  each  thing 
that  seemed  to  me  a  thing  that  I  had  known 
of  old  made  the  mists  roll  more  thickly,  made 
the  nameless  terror  greater;  how  through  it 


68  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

all  I  felt  myself  carried  toward  the  work  that 
I  have  been  made  to  do,  —  the  work,  the  duty, 
of  which  as  yet  I  have  no  glimpse.  Sometimes 
it  has  seemed  to  me  that  my  life-work  was  to 
be  a  great  one,  admired  of  men ;  now,  as  it 
draws  nearer,  it  brings  with  it  shapeless  terrors 
from  which  I  fain  would  shrink.  But  ever  my 
life-current  presses  me  onward  amid  these  scenes 
whose  hidden  meaning  seems  ever  vaster. 

As  I  spoke,  the  mystery  of  Rome  gathered 
about  me  more  thickly  than  of  old.  I  was 
like  one  in  a  dream.  I  saw  the  old  Cardi 
nal  as  if  he  were  afar  off  in  his  great  chair ; 
and  the  shaggy  satyrs  of  wood  grinned  like 
devils,  and  tossed  their  horned  heads,  and 
would  have  rushed  upon  me,  but  that  he  held 
them  back  with  his  thin  white  fingers.  Then 
I  saw  his  face,  full  of  strange  excitement,  look 
ing  now  at  me,  and  now  at  something  which 
lay  on  a  table  by  his  side  in  a  fretted  frame  of 
gold.  And  none  but  the  grinning  satyrs  knew 
the  meaning  of  what  was  passing. 

Then  I  heard  him  ask  me  with  slow  words 


The  Duchess  JZmilia.  69 

where  these  strange  fancies  oppressed  me  most, 
what  part  of  Rome  seemed  most  charged  with 
mystic  meaning.  And  I  told  him  how  his  great 
palace  meant  most  to  me  of  all  I  had  seen ;  and 
I  muttered  words  about  the  great  Magdalene 
into  whose  heart  my  spirit  had  entered. 

"And  I,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  so  tremulous 
that  the  words  would  hardly  come,  —  "  am  I, 
too,  a  thing  that  you  have  known  ?  " 

I  could  not  tell.  What  I  said  I  know  not. 
All  was  confusion.  It  was  as  if  I  had  slept. 

When  I  awoke  he  was  speaking  words  of 
comfort.  The  clouds  of  mystery  were  floating 
away  from  me.  And  he. was  grand  and  calm 
once  more,  as  I  had  seen  him  first  on  the  great 
stairway  of  his  palace. 

"  Truly,"  he  was  saying,  "  your  life  is  a 
mystery,  a  mystery  full  of  sadness ;  but  the 
time  may  come  when  the  sadness  shall  be  all 
past,  when  the  mystery  shall  be  all  clear. 
Watch  and  wait.  Come  to  me  when  you  will. 
To  speak  out  such  things  as  are  in  your  mind 
does  men  good.  Do  not  fear  to  speak  them  to 


70  The  Duchess  JEmilia. 

me,  for  I  have  known  joy  and  sorrow  and  agony, 
and  life  has  taught  me  to  feel  for  others  whose 
burdens  are  heavier  than  mine  —  if  so  be  it 
such  others  there  are  —  that  sympathy  which 
should  make  their  burdens  lighter.  Speak  to 
me  when  you  will.  I  will  always  listen. 
And  perhaps  this  friendship  which  begins  so 
strangely  shall  end  for  you  and  me  in  a  joy 
that  neither  of  us  knows  to-day.  God  grant 
that  such  may  be  His  will." 

His  words  were  like  a  message  of  peace.  I 
found  myself  kneeling  at  his  feet,  pressing  my 
lips  upon  the  blue-veined  hand  that  let  me 
grasp  it  now.  Then  I  turned  up  my  eyes 
toward  his.  He  was  looking  down  at  me,  still 
amazed.  And  it  seemed  to  me  that  even  as 
we  looked  upon  one  another  then  we  had  looked 
before ;  and  though  to  look  at  one  another  now 
brought  peace  to  both,  the  thought  of  the  looks 
that  we  had  cast  upon  one  another  in  the  name 
less  past  brought  back  the  shudder  that  had 
swept  over  me  when  I  stood  before  the  Magda 
lene.  My  eyes  looked  into  his ;  and  he  looked 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  71 

down,  first  at  me  and  then  at  something  which 
he  held  in  his  hand.  It  seemed  like  a  miniature. 
As  he  gazed  at  it  the  look  of  trouble  came 
creeping  over  his  face  again ;  and  he  drew  back 
his  hand  as  if  he  shrank  from  mv  touch. 

Then,  with  a  great  effort,  he  laid  the  minia 
ture  on  the  table  beside  him,  with  its  face  down 
so  that  none  could  see  it ;  and  his  fingers 
grasped  instead  a  golden  cross  that  hung  about 
his  neck ;  and  the  look  of  calmness  came  back 
to  his  face. 

"  God  be  with  you,  my  child,"  he  said. 
"  Come  to  me  when  you  will.  Such  comfort 
as  I  can  give,  you  shall  have." 

Then  I  left  him  alone  in  his  carven  chair. 
But  the  shaggy  satyrs  grinned  no  more,  but 
gnashed  their  teeth  in  spite. 


VI. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

FOR  the  first  time  since  I  was  a  child,  my 
life  is  neither  a  pleasure  nor  a  burden  ; 
it  is  a  fact,  like  the  Tiber  which  I  watched 
to-day  swirling  under  the  Bridge  of  San  An- 
gelo ;  like  the  Tiber,  it  is  flowing  onward 
whither  it  knows  not,  but  it  is  flowing  as  it 
was  made  to  flow.  I  am  content. 

I  go  to  the  Cardinal  Colonna  almost  daily. 
What  draws  me  thither  I  know  as  little  as 
ever.  I  know  only  that  in  his  presence  I  find 
a  semblance  of  the  peace  I  yearn  for.  Yet 
what  I  find  there  is  not  like  the  peace  of  the 
blessed,  that  great  contentment  which  comes 
to  happy  souls  when  their  work  is  done.  It 
is  like  the  peace  of  one  who  has  shuddered  for 
years  in  the  fear  that  death  may  take  him 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  73 

unawares,  and  who  finds  himself  at  last  face  to 
face  with  a  fate  that  may  not  be  shunned,  and 
breathes  freely  because  the  terrors  of  uncer 
tainty  are  past ;  yet  all  the  time  the  death  that 
he  sees  before  him  is  ever  a  vaster  mystery. 

Perhaps  this  feeling  is  foolish.  I  have  tried 
to  speak  of  it  to  Cleveland  ;  but  he  laughed  at 
me,  and  I  said  no  more.  Yet  in  his  laughter 
he  explained  one  thing  that  had  seemed  wonder 
ful.  How  the  Cardinal  Colonna  had  come  to 
know  the  history  of  my  life  I  could  not  guess. 
Cleveland  laughed  again  when  I  said  so.  Mon- 
signor  dei  Bardi,  he  told  me,  who  is  deep  in 
bargaining  with  him  about  the  great  Magda 
lene,  had  asked  him  many  questions  about 
me.  Doubtless,  Monsignor  had  reported  his 
answers  to  the  Cardinal  before  His  Eminence 
summoned  me. 

"  Though  why  the  devil  His  Eminence  should 
trouble  himself  about  you,"  said  Cleveland,  "  is 
more  than  I  can  see.  He  never  showed  any 
interest  in  us." 

"And   I'm  sure,"  said  Cousin  Abby,  "we 


74  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

never  wanted  him  to.  The  less  you  have  to 
do  with  Romish  priests  the  better." 

Cousin  Abby  is  a  stanch  Protestant ;  she 
goes  to  all  the  services  at  the  British  Legation, 
where  decent  English  folk  appear  in  black  coats 
and  monstrous  bonnets. 

They  are  kind  to  me,  these  kinsfolk  of  mine. 
I  am  grateful,  I  think,  for  their  kindness ;  but 
in  spite  of  myself  they  trouble  me  with  their 
constant  talk  of  little  things.  The  meanness 
of  life  rises  before  me  with  every  word  they 
speak.  And  when  I  speak  frankly  to  them 
they  stare  at  me  as  if  I  were  a  madman.  Per 
haps  while  they  stare  they  remember  the  old 
story  of  my  parents.  With  them  I  find  it  best 
to  keep  my  thoughts  to  myself.  And  thoughts 
kept  back  surge  and  swell  in  my  mind  longing 
to  burst  out,  until  I  am  in  a  great  trouble ; 
then,  if  I  speak,  my  words  are  incoherent.  So 
things  go  on,  from  bad  to  worse. 

With  the  Romans  whom  I  have  come  to  know 
all  is  different.  The  movement  of  their  life  is 
like  the  current  of  a  great  stream  whose  source 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  75 

is  hidden  deep  in  a  past  forgotten  by  man,  a 
stream  which  is  flowing  on  toward  some  unseen 
future  whither  it  is  bearing  all  the  world.  And 
the  life  that  I  have  known  in  New  England,  the 
life  that  my  kinsfolk  have  brought  with  them 
to  Rome,  is  like  some  tiny  whirlpool,  full  of 
broken  sticks  and  mean  things,  ever  circling 
round  and  round  in  some  petty  corner  of  a  shore 
that  has  caught  it  and  keeps  it  apart  from  the 
stream. 

Though  I  have  seen  the  Cardinal  Colonna  so 
often  I  have  never  spoken  of  the  mystery. that 
was  upon  us  when  first  we  met  face  to  face. 
Nor  has  he  spoken  of  it  to  me.  We  talk  of 
common  things,  —  now  of  the  old  glory  of  Rome 
and  the  beauty  that  still  thrives  in  Roman  sun 
shine,  now  of  the  cold  New  England  that  has 
passed  out  of  my  life  like  a  troubled  dream, 
now  of  art  and  letters  and  men,  —  never  of  our 
selves.  Indeed,  that  solemn  moment  when  he 
and  I  looked  into  one  another's  eyes  and  saw 
there  we  knew  not  what  seems  to  me  now  like 
a  dream, .too.  But  it  is  like  a  dream  from  which 


76  Tfie  Duchess  Emilia. 

I  am  not  quite  awakened,  a  dream  into  which, 
I  know  not  how  or  when,  I  may  fall  again. 

I  am  beginning  to  feel  that  I  have  friends 
here  in  Rome.  The  Cardinal  Colonna  has  made 
me  known  to  the  kinsfolk  with  whom  he  lives. 
They  have  treated  me  Avith  kindness.  They  bid 
me  come  and  go  among  them  like  one  of  them 
selves. 

Thin  Monsignor  dei  Bardi  looked  doubtfully 
upon  me  at  first.  He  would  peer  at  me  with 
his  small  eyes,  as  he  handled  his  snuff-box, 
wondering  whether  I  had  some  hidden  object 
in  making  my  way  among  these  people.  But 
now,  I  think,  he  sees  in  me  no  more  than  a 
harmless  caprice  of  His  Eminence  ;  and  he  glides 
about  as  if  I  were  not  in  the  world.  He  has 
smiles  for  all  men,  clever  words  for  those  who 
wish  them,  supple  bows  for  those  who  are 
greater  than  he.  Truly  he  is  in  the  world  if 
ever  man  was.  I  smile  now  as  I  try  to  think 
of  him  in  the  Heaven  they  preach  about,  where 
business  and  smirking  are  unknown. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  77 

There  is  another  man  among  these  Romans 
who  treats  me  with  small  courtesy.  It.  is  the 
bald  little  Prince  Palchi,  who  was  with  His 
Eminence  when  I  first  came  to  him.  The 
Prince,  they  tell  me,  is  the  richest  of  modern 
Romans.  His  father,  who  sprang  no  one  knows 
whence,  made  a  great  fortune  in  the  troubled 
times  that  came  to  all  Europe  after  the  Revolu 
tion  in  France.  When  he  died  he  was  a  great 
banker ;  and  left  his  bank  and  his  money  and 
his  palaces  and  gardens  to  his  dapper  son.  So, 
favored  by  fortune,  the  small  prince  lives  among 
men  whose  names  run  back  to  the  days  of  the 
Caesars;  there  he  makes  formal  bows,  and  shows 
his  white  teeth  in  forced  smiles,  and  plays  with 
his  jewelled  rings  and  charms,  and  prattles  the 
gossip  of  the  hour,  and  has  little  thought  for 
men  like  me  without  a  pedigree.  But  to  the 
great  people  of  Rome  he  is  cap  in  hand,  and 
when  they  deign  to  listen  to  what  he  says, 
he  looks  vastly  contented. 

The  one  whom  I  see  listen  most  is  the  Count 
ess  Barbarini.  She  stands  at  the  head  of  the 


78  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

house  before  the  world,  for  the  Cardinal  Colonna 
never  leaves  his  own  rooms,  where  none  may 
come  unless  he  bids  them.  She  is  such  a  figure 
as  my  fancy  makes  those  women  who  ruled  the 
Popes  in  the  olden  time.  Olimpia  Pamfili-Doria 
might  have  been  like  her,  with  her  yellow  laces, 
and  her  big  eyes,  and  her  disdainful  lip,  and  her 
plump  hand  with  tapering  fingers.  She  is  kind 
to  the  people  about  her,  but  she  treats  them  all 
as  if  they  were  made  of  meaner  clay.  Indeed, 
I  might  have  thought  her  disdainful  of  all  things 
except  herself,  had  I  not  seen  her  once  in  the 
ante-chamber  of  the  Cardinal  Colonna,  glancing 
at  some  accounts  which  a  white-haired  servant 
had  laid  before  her.  As  I  passed  through  the 
room,  I  heard  her  exclaim,  — 

"  What  is  this  ?     Fish  !  " 

"  For  the  table  of  His  Eminence,"  said  the  cring 
ing  servant.  "  The  Holy  Apostles  themselves 
could  not  have  bought  it  for  a  lower  price." 

"Nino!"  cried  the  Countess,  "if  ever  you 
expend  such  a  princely  fortune  on  fish  again, 
not  all  the  Holy  Apostles  themselves,  if  they 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  79 

came  hat  in  hand,  should  prevent  me  from  turn 
ing  you  from  my  doors." 

So,  after  all,  there  are  things  in  life  which 
the  stately  Countess  deigns  to  notice. 

Among  the  men  I  see  in  her  presence  there 
is  one  to  whom  I  feel  already  as  if  he  were 
an  old  friend.  This  is  the  Count  Luigi  Orsini, 
a  godson  of  the  Cardinal  Colonna's.  He  is  a 
favorite  with  His  Eminence,  and  comes  and 
goes  here  as  if  this  were  his  home.  His  race 
is  among  the  oldest  of  Rome.  He  is  an  officer 
in  the  Pope's  guard.  Sometimes  he  comes  in 
a  uniform  as  grand  as  ever  a  school-boy  painted 
with  his  first  box  of  colors.  He  is  full  of  youth 
ful  life  ;  but  the  training  of  the  world  he  lives 
in  keeps  him  calm  in  manner.  And  perhaps  I 
might  have  thought  him  as  cool  as  Monsignor 
himself,  were  it  not  for  the  warm  grasp  of  his 
hand,  and  for  the  fire  with  which  he  spoke  to 
me  one  day  some  verses  of  a  Roman  poet  whose 
name  I  had  never  heard.  Monsignor  dei  Bardi 
chanced  to  be  by.  As  he  listened  to  the  verses 
his  smile  was  not  pleasant. 


80  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  Your  poetry  is  ver}7-  charming,  Count,"  he 
said  at  last,  at  the  end  of  a  stanza ;  "  but  if  I 
were  you  I  think  I  should  prefer  my  uniform. 
The  two  do  not  seem  to  me  compatible." 

"I  am  an  Italian!"  exclaimed  the  Count 
Luigi,  with  all  the  warmth  which  the  verses 
had  kindled.  "No  Italian  can  hear  those  words 
without  a  thrill." 

"  They  do  not  excite  my  enthusiasm,"  said 
Monsignor  drily.  And  when  I  had  declined 
his  proffered  snuff-box,  and  he  had  taken  a 
pinch  in  his  discolored  fingers,  he  moved  away, 
gently  shaking  the  brown  dust  from  his  hand. 

"  That  black  fellow  is  a  serpent,"  whispered 
the  Count,  as  Monsignor  passed  out  of  hearing  ; 
"  he  has  no  blood  in  his  veins."  The  Count's 
blood  was  burning  red  in  his  dark  cheeks. 

And  Filippa — I  wonder  why  I  have  left  her 
till  the  last.  I  used  to  think  that  women  had 
no  charm  for  me.  At  home,  I  am  sure,  they 
had  none.  There  they  are  good  and  pure,  — 
better,  perhaps,  by  the  stern  standards  our  an 
cestors  fixed  than  she  whom  I  love  to  think  of 


The  Duchess  JZmilia.  81 

here.  Yet  sometimes  I  like  to  fancy  her  among 
them,  with  the  grand  fulness  of  her  human  life 
gleaming  beside  their  fading  Northern  beauty. 
By  her  side  they  would  seem  like  feeble  copies 
of  what  they  were  meant  to  be,  as  a  Roman 
statue  looks  when  it  is  stood  beside  a  Grecian 
goddess.  Her  manner  is  simple,  simpler  than 
the  manner  of  lesser  women.  Yet  as  she  was 
when  I  saw  her  first  on  the  Pincian  Hill,  when 
floods  of  sunshine  filled  the  air,  and  the  great 
dome  of  Saint  Peter's  was  bathed  in  a  mist  of 
golden  blue,  and  faint  music  came  with  the 
wind  that  rustled  through  the  trees  and  the 
flowers,  so  she  is  here  in  the  dark  palace  of  her 
fathers. 

In  wild  moments  I  have  dared  to  think  of 
her  as  mine,  to  dream  of  clasping  her  in  my 
arms,  or  rather  of  sinking  down  before  her 
and  flinging  my  arms  about  her  knees  while 
she  looks  down,  grand  as  ever,  but  with  no 
forbidding  gaze.  But  when  I  try  to  think  of 
her  with  me,  in  the  simple  life  that  men  and 
women  live  together  in  my  country,  I  laugh 
6 


82  The  Duchess  JUmilia. 

aloud.    The  Grecian  goddess  was  no  house-wife. 
Yet  is  she  the  less  to  be  adored  for  that  ? 

Do  I  love  her,  I  wonder  ?  As  I  write  the 
words  I  laugh  again  at  myself,  but  it  is  with 
no  happy  laugh  ;  for  with  the  laughter  comes 
the  old  thought  that  will  not  be  laid  to  rest. 
Even  here,  where  all  things  seem  full  of  peace, 
I  feel  that  I  am  ever  moving  on,  as  the  rolling 
earth  moves  on  through  the  space  where  there 
is  nothing  to  check  its  moving,  toward  my 
duty  that  lies  hidden.  When  that  thought 
comes  I  know  that  to  my  life,  whirling  onward 
toward  I  know  not  what,  I  may  never  link 
another,  even  though  that  other  were  a  thou 
sand-fold  less  precious  than  hers  of  whom  I 
love  to  dream.  Yes,  I  should  count  it  a  bless 
ing  that  she  has  never  smiled  on  me,  save 
with  the  courtesy  which  she  shows  to  all  who 
are  about  her.  For  whither  I  go  I  must  go 

O  O 

alone. 

To-night  the  past  seems  far  away,  the  future 
near;  the  past  seems  dark,  the  future  bright. 


The  Duchess  JZmilia.  83 

I  am  like  one  who  is  awaking  from  a  sleep  that 
has  brought  no  rest.  In  God's  name,  let  me 
doze  no  more  ! 

I  am  just  come  from  the  rooms  of  the  Count 
ess  Barbarini,  whither  I  was  bidden  along  with 
the  Romans  who  have  come  there  of  .right  all 
their  lives  long.  There  I  was  silent,  for  I  felt 
little  inclination  to  mingle  with  the  company 
about  me.  I  stood  aside,  watching  the  cour 
teous  men  and  the  stately  women,  calm  until 
they  spoke,  then  speaking  with  volcanic  fire. 
Among  them  I  saw  Filippa.  From  her  my 
eyes  cannot  long  depart  when  she  is  within 
my  sight.  So  I  stood  and  watched  her  face 
as  she  sat  near  by,  not  knowing  that  she  was 
watched.  By  her  side  was  small  Palchi,  whose 
bald  head,  with  its  fringe  of  crisp  and  perfumed 
curls,  gleamed  in  the  light  of  the  tapers  like  the 
jewelled  rings  which  I  could  see  as  he  moved 
his  hand.  He  was  talking  to  her  with  anima 
tion,  smiling  and  bowing  and  gesticulating  as 
vigorously  as  the  innkeepers  with  whom  my 
vetturino  squabbled  on  the  road  to  Rome.  But 


84  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

she  listened  with  an  air  in  which  I  saw  at  last 
some  shade  of  her  mother's  disdainful  look, 
and  played  with  her  fan,  and  looked  about  as 
carelessly  as  if  she  sat  alone. 

By  and  by  her  eyes  met  mine  ;  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  saw  in  them  a  look  of  pleasure,  as 
if  she  were  glad  to  know  that  I  was  by.  But 
her  eyes  did  not  rest  on  me,  but  wandered  on 
toward  others.  And  I  stood,  wondering  for  the 
first  time  whether  the  thoughts  of  her  which 
more  and  more  fill  my  mind  had  shown  them 
selves  unknown  to  me.  Women,  they  say,  look 
deep.  If  she  has  seen  my  heart,  she  has  seen 
things  that  as  jet  I  have  not  dared  tell  in  words 
even  to  mjTself. 

Presently  she  looked  toward  me  again.  Then, 
more  than  before,  I  saw  that  her  look  was 
friendly.  So  I  passed  to  her  side  and  spoke 
I  know  not  what  formal  words. 

When  I  came  she  held  me  out  her  hand,  and 
I,  for  the  first  time,  bowed  over  it  and  kissed 
it,  as  I  had  seen  the  Romans  do.  Then,  as  I 
rose  up  again  and  looked  into  her  face,  I  saw 


The  Duchess  Emilia,  85 

that  she  was  looking  at  me  with  no  displeasure  ; 
but  she  looked  at  me  no  longer  than  a  maiden 
should.  I  felt  a  throbbing  in  all  my  veins. 
Standing  by  her  side  I  knew  only  that  I  was 
there.  I  spoke  stiffly,  for  no  thought  would 
come  to  my  mind  save  that  I  must  not  speak 
what  I  felt.  And  Palchi,  who  never  left  his 
seat,  tried  to  turn  her  from  me,  with  fine  compli 
ments;  but  she  turned  away  from  him  instead, 
hardly  deigning  to  answer  the  talk  which  he 
rolled  off  as  glibly  as  if  it  were  a  lesson  that 
he  had  just  learned.  Yet  she  listened  with  a 
smile  to  the  nothings  that  I  stammered,  and 
answered  them  as  simply  as  they  were  spoken. 
And  it  seemed  to  me  that  just  as  I  was  happy 
with  a  troubled  joy  at  her  side,  so  she  was 
happy  at  mine  ;  that  if  Palchi  had  risen  and 
gone  she  would  have  been  as  glad  as  I. 

But  Palchi  would  not  go.  And  presently 
came  her  stately  mother,  who  spoke  to  me  so 
that  I  could  stay  by  Filippa  no  longer.  I 
turned  to  speak  my  farewell.  As  she  answered 
me  she  let  fall  some  flowers  which  had  been  in 


86  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

her  hand  ;  and  kneeling  to  pick  them  up,  I 
took  one  and  kept  it  hidden.  Whether  she 
knew  what  I  had  done,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  in 
her  look  as  she  bade  me  farewell  there  was  no 
displeasure. 

So,  after  I  had  spoken  with  the  Countess 
Barbarini  and  with  others  who  were  about  her, 
I  came  away.  And  here  I  sit  writing  of 
Filippa,  thinking  of  her,  forgetting  the  self 
that  has  haunted  me  so  long.  The  thought 
of  self  comes,  as  old  habits  will,  in  spite  of  all 
we  can  do;  but  when  it  comes  to-night  I  look 
at  the  flower  which  she  has  held  in  her  hand. 
I  kiss  it,  speaking  her  name.  Then  I  think  of 
nothing  but  of  her. 

So  my  life  glides  on  in  Rome,  now  with  my 
own  kinsfolk,  now  with  the  old  Cardinal  Colonna 
and  his.  All  things  seem  to  smile,  even  the 
Roman  girl  who  more  and  more  fills  my  thoughts. 
In  truth,  Filippa  is  so  full  of  gentle  courtesy  that 
I  begin  to  dream  of  a  time  not  far  off  when  I 
shall  dare,  after  the  manner  of  her  country,  to 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  87 

speak  of  what  I  feel  to  those  who  may  grant  me 
the  right  to  speak  of  it  to  her.  Yet  even  in  her 
presence,  where  I  am  filled  with  such  love  as 
makes  me  forget  all  other  things,  there  comes  to 
me  little  peace.  The  old  feeling  that  I  strive 
to  trample  down  rises  above  all,  and  bids  me 
gaze  onwards  toward  the  duty  that  I  cannot 
discern  nor  yet  forget.  There  is  within  me 
a  voice  which  whispers  that  this  passion  to 
which  I  yield  myself  up  is  a  devil's  snare.  In 
wiser  moments  I  reason  with  myself,  thinking 
how  men  who  love  are  always  tortured  with 
disquiet  until  their  love  is  blest ;  and  I  laugh 
at  my  folly  as  others  would  laugh.  But  my 
laugh  sounds  hollow. 

When  I  come  to  the  old  Cardinal  Colonna 
all  is  changed.  In  his  presence  I  find  a  peace 
that  I  never  find  elsewhere.  Yet  even  that  is 
only  such  peace  as  a  soldier  finds  when  he  lays 
him  down  with  his  arms  upon  him,  never  know 
ing  when  the  order  may  come  nor  whither  it 
may  bid  him  go.  From  the  Cardinal  I  am  just 
come  ;  and  I  feel  still  some  remnant  of  the 


88  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

peace  which  his  presence  sheds  about  him. 
But  now  again  the  form  of  Filippa  rises  before 
my  eyes;  and  there  is  a  part  of  me  that  will 
think  of  nothing  else,  just  as  there  is  another 
part  which  bids  me  turn  my  eyes  another  way. 

As  I  write  these  lines  the  clouds  that  I  dread 
are  gathering  before  my  eyes  once  more,  —  the 
clouds  wherein  sits  Magdalene,  groaning  in 
all  the  misery  of  her  guilt.  I  seem  to  know 
that  it  is  to  her  side  that  I  should  press  on, 
nor  rest  beside  this  siren  girl  of  old  Rome. 
But  now,  again,  I  look  upon  the  flower  that 
I  found  at  her  feet,  and  I  kiss  it,  murmuring 
her  name ;  and  in  that  murmur  all  other 
thoughts  are  drowned. 


VII. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

T  AM  in  a  great  trouble.  I  have  let  myself 
-*•  wander  from  the  path  that  I  should  tread. 
I  have  striven  to  silence  the  voice  that  called 
me  back.  Even  now  I  would  fain  be  weak :  I 
would  fain  tell  myself  that  I  have  been  betrayed, 
that  the  girl  upon  whom  I  have  let  my  thoughts 
dwell  has  played  with  the  honest  love  which 
she  saw  hidden  in  my  eyes,  that  it  was  to  spite 
dapper  Palchi  that  she  smiled  upon  me  first, 
that  then  it  pleased  her  fancy  to  see  so  strange 
a  creature  as  I  lying  at  her  feet.  But  now  at 
last  I  am  gaining  strength  enough  to  blame  my 
folly  and  no  deed  of  hers,  for  the  trouble  I 
suffer. 

To-day  I  was  making  my  way  to  the  Cardinal 
Colonna,  thinking  as  I  went  of  the  peace  that  I 


90  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

have  found  in  his  presence.  I  came  to  the  ante 
chamber  through  which  those  who  go  to  him 
must  pass.  There  I  found  an  open  door  ;  and 
looking  through  it,  I  saw  sitting  in  an  inner 
room  the  Countess  Barbarini.  She  was  busy, 
as  I  had  seen  her  before,  with  household  matters, 
of  which  she  talked  to  her  old  servant.  Near 
by  sat  Filippa,  whose  presence  brought  back  to 
me  thoughts  of  love.  So  I  stopped  for  a  while 
where  I  could  not  be  seen,  and  looked  at  her, 
marvelling,  as  I  have  always  marvelled  when 
she  passed  before  my  eyes,,  at  the  beauty  which 
is  hers. 

For  a  while  I  fancied  that  she  sat  alone,  think 
ing  I  knew  not  what  girlish  thoughts.  And  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never  seen  her  face  so 
full  of  life  and  of  passion,  that  I  had  never  seen 
such  meaning  in  her  eyes.  I  wondered  at  what 
her  fancy  looked.  In  my  foolish  heart,  I  dared 
to  guess  that  it  was  I  ;  and  I  longed  to  pass 
within  the  room  and  to  stand  where  she  could 
see  me.  But  presently  I  saw  her  lips  move  as 
if  she  spoke  in  a  whisper  to  one  who  was  near 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  91 

but  hidden  from  me.  I  felt  my  heart  beat  fast 
as  there  came  to  me  the  thought  that  there 
might  be  another  to  whom  she  looked  and  spoke 
thus,  as  never  save  in  my  fancy  had  she  looked 
or  spoken  to  me.  I  moved  myself  a  little,  to 
see  if  perchance  there  was  any  one  by  her  side. 
And  when  I  came  where  I  could  see  who  was 
there,  it  was  with  a  great  effort  that  I  kept  my 
self  from  crying  out  in  rage. 

For  beside  her  sat  one  who  is  suffered  to 
come  and  go  here  as  if  he  were  her  brother, 
though  no  tie  of  kindred  binds  them.  It  was 
the  Count  Luigi.  While  the  Countess  Barba- 
rini's  back  was  turned,  and  she  was  busy  with 
matters  that  filled  her  mind,  he  was  whispering 
to  Filippa.  None  but  she  could  hear  his  words  ; 
but  though  I  could  not  hear  them  I  could  guess 
their  meaning.  For  no  man  speaks  with  such  a 
face,  and  no  woman  hears  with  such  blushes,  any 
words  but  words  of  love.  Then,  if  I  could  have 
wished  for  more  to  tell  me  that  what  I  guessed 
was  true,  I  saw  him  take  her  hand  in  his.  And 
she,  glancing  at  her  mother  to  make  sure  that 


92  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

her  eyes  were  elsewhere,  suffered  him  to  take  it 
and  to  press  it  to  his  lips. 

When  I  saw  that,  I  could  look  no  more. 
I  stood  aside  where  none  could  see  me  from 
within.  I  leaned  against  the  wall,  full  of  pas 
sion  such  as  those  feel  who  have  murder  in  their 
hearts.  Within  myself  I  cried  out  that  she  had 
tricked  me,  that  she  had  played  with  the  love 
that  had  taken  possession  of  my  being.  Then, 
with  no  pause  for  thought,  I  took  from  my 
bosom  a  little  packet  in  which  I  had  wrapped 
the  flower  which  when  she  first  smiled  on  me  I 
had  taken  at  her  feet.  I  looked  at  it  once,  full 
of  rage.  Then  I  flung  it  down  and  trampled 
on  it,  doing  dishonor  to  her  who  smiled  as  she 
played  me  false. 

But  then  came  other  thoughts.  Was  not  this 
sight  that  I  thought  I  had  seen  only  another 
strange  fancy,  like  the  cloudy  dreams  of  fate 
that  I  had  striven  to  forget  ?  Was  it  in  truth 
the  girl  that  I  had  dared  to  love  and  the  man 
that  I  had  grown  to  deem  my  friend,  whom  I 
had  seen  within,  clasping  one  another's  hands? 


The  Duchess  Emilia. 


I  rubbed  my  eyes ;  and  gathering  up  my  cour 
age,  stepped  again  to  a  spot  whence  I  could  see 
them. 

All  was  as  it  had  been  before.  The  stately 
Countess  still  sat  talking  of  money  to  her  ser 
vant.  Behind  her  still  sat  the  lovers,  with  no 
eyes  now  save  for  one  another,  their  hands  still 
clasped  together,  their  lips  still  moving  with 
whispers  that  I  could  not  hear,  their  cheeks  still 
flushing  with  the  happiness  that  I  might  never 
know. 

Then,  shrinking  back,  I  trampled  once  again 
on  the  withered  flower  that  I  had  loved  to  kiss. 
And  so  I  turned  away  from  them,  who  cast  no 
look  on  me ;  and  with  unsteady  step  I  made 
my  way  to  the  room  where  the  Cardinal  Co- 
lonna  is  used  to  sit.  He  had  bidden  me  come 
when  I  would,  and  not  trouble  myself  with  any 
announcement  of  my  coming.  So,  as  had  grown 
my  custom,  I  passed  within  the  door-way,  and 
looked  for  the  gentle  figure  that  should  sit 
ready  to  breathe  upon  me  such  comfort  as 
I  yearned  for.  But  his  great  carven  chair 


94  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

was  empty,  and  the  footstool  that  stood  beside 
it  was  overturned  as  if  he  had  arisen  in  haste. 
And  it  seemed  to  me,  when  I  found  that  he  was 
not  where  I  had  looked  to  find  him,  as  if  all  the 
world  were  bound  to  spite  me.  Like  a  peevish 
child  I  was  about  to  cry  out.  But  of  a  sudden 
I  saw  where  he  was  gone  ;  and  I  was  awed  into 
silence. 

For  across  the  great  room  there  stood  a  carven 
cross,  on  which  was  the  form  of  Christ  in  the 
great  agony  that  he  suffered  for  the  sins  of  men. 
And  before  it,  on  a  wooden  form  such  as  I  have 
seen  in  the  common  churches,  knelt  the  old  Car 
dinal.  His  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  image  ;  his 
face  was  turned  away  from  me.  But  I  could 
see  his  thin  white  hands  clasped  tight  together, 
and  I  could  hear  the  low  voice  in  which  he 
breathed  forth  a  passionate  prayer. 

I  stood  and  watched  him  with  such  feelings 
as  have  come  to  me  when  I  have  entered  a 
great  church,  where  in  the  dim  light  I  have 
found  myself  of  a  sudden  standing  before  the 
priests  of  God,  breathing  the  incense  and  list- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  95 

ening  to  the  mystic  words  of  the  mass.  The  pet 
tiness  of  the  things  that  had  worried  my  heart 
made  me  ashamed.  The  thought  of  the  woman 
whose  earthly  beauty  had  dazzled  my  eyes  until 
they  could  see  no  other  thing,  seemed  as  nothing 
in  the  presence  of  this  man,  who,  more  than 
any  other  that  I  have  known,  deserves  the  name 
of  holy.  For  as  the  years  have  borne  him  on 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  end  of  the  pilgrimage 
of  his  life,  he  has  kept  himself  more  and  more 
apart  from  the  things  that  men  love.  His  mind 
is  fixed  on  Heaven.  In  the  midst  of  this  Old 
World  which  my  countrymen  would  teach  me  to 
think  full  of  evil,  he  has  moved  ever  onwards 
toward  that  oldest  world  which  Rome,  with  all 
her  weakness  and  her  wavering,  has  ever  kept 
in  sight,  even  as  Peter  kept  his  Lord.  And 
now  I  found  him  here,  face  to  face  with  the 
Master  to  whom  he  has  given  his  loyal  life. 

For  a  while  it  was  enough  to  stand  and  watch 
him.  At  last  there  came  to  me  a  great  desire 
to  kneel  at  his  side,  and  there  pour  forth  a  con 
fession  of  the  weakness  that  had  let  me  turn 


96  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

from  the  path  I  was  made  to  tread.  I  longed  to 
speak  a  prayer  that  I  might  forget  the  love  that 
for  a  moment  had  filled  my  heart,  —  a  prayer  of 
blessing  upon  that  other  love  which  shall  make 
Filippa's  life  happy,  whatever  fate  may  come  to 
me.  I  longed  to  pray  that,  like  the  man  who 
knelt  before  me,*I  might  have  strength  to  press 
onward  to  my  work  which  some  day  I  shall 
clearly  see ;  to  pray,  too,  that  the  day  when 
my  life-work  shall  no  longer  be  a  mystery 
be  not  long  in  coming.  So  I  stirred  myself; 
and  with  soft  step,  lest  the  sound  of  my  pres 
ence  should  disturb  him,  I  moved  toward  his 
side. 

The  great  chair  where  he  was  used  to  sit  was 
in  my  way ;  and  at  its  feet  there  lay  on  the 
marble  floor  something  that  sparkled.  When 
I  came  close  to  it  I  saw  that  it  was  the  little 
frame  of  gold  that  he  had  held  on  the  day  when 
I  first  came  here  to  his  presence.  It  lay  there 
as  if  it  had  fallen  when  he  had  risen  up.  What 
image  that  frame  held  I  had  never  seen.  I  had 
done  better  to  pass  it  by  without  a  look ;  for  as 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  97 

my  eye  first  caught  sight  of  it,  I  felt  creeping 
through  me  such  horror  as  came  to  me  when 
I  looked  upon  the  Magdalene  who  could  not 
cast  away  her  sin,  —  such  horror  as  I  felt 
when  first  I  knelt  at  the  old  Cardinal's  feet. 
Yet,  though  I  seemed  to  know  that  what  I 
wished  to  see  was  an  evil  thing,  it  charmed  me, 
as  sin  charmed  our  fathers  in  the  garden  of 
Paradise.  I  stretched  forth  my  hand  and  took 
the  frame,  and  looked  upon  what  was  within 
it.  Then  I  stood  still  and  trembled. 

For  there  in  the  golden  frame  was  the  painted 
figure  of  a  woman,  dressed  in  the  garb  that  women 
wore  when  the  old  Cardinal  was  young.  Her 
dark  eyes  looked  upon  me  with  a  look  that  I  had 
known  before.  At  first  I  could  not  tell  where 
I  had  known  it.  But  then,  of  a  sudden,  I  knew 
that  her  face  was  mine,  —  that  mine  was  hers,  — 
that  the  eyes  that  looked  upon  me  from  the 
painted  face  were  the  eyes  that  had  looked  upon 
me  from  my  mirror  ever  since  memory  began. 

Then  more  than  ever  I  knew  —  I  could  not 
tell  how  — *•  the  vileness  of  my  life,  breathing  out 
7 


98  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

its  time  with  no  good  deeds,  droning  useless 
through  the  earth  where  it  was  made  to  work. 
The  great  eyes  of  the  portrait  bade  me  be 
doing.  But  what  ?  —  what  ?  I  could  not  tell. 
I  cannot  tell.  Within  myself  I  cried  out,  "  Be 
merciful,  Lord,  to  me  a  sinner  !  "  But  I  made 
no  sound.  And  as  I  stood  trembling,  there 
came  to  my  ears  the  words  of  the  old  Cardinal's 
prayer :  — 

"  Save  me,  O  Lord.  Take  my  thoughts  from 
the  things  of  this  world  to  Thy  holy  will.  Give 
me  strength  to  cast  off  the  evil  memories  of  the 
past  that  I  have  striven  to  trample  down  within 
me ;  to  look  to  Thee,  to  Thee  alone,  in  the  infi 
nite  goodness  and  mercy  that  Thou  hast  prom 
ised  them  who  give  themselves  to  Thee." 

Then  I  knew  that  this  was  no  place  for  me  to 
sta}r.  And  very  quietly  I  turned  away  and  left 
the  old  man  in  the  midst  of  his  prayer.  But  all 
the  time  I  held  the  portrait  in  my  hand.  I  have 
it  with  me  now.  As  I  look  upon  it  and  see 
again  my  own  face,  I  am  filled  ever  with  a 
deeper  horror.  What  meaning  lies  within  it  I 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  99 

cannot  tell.  But  it  has  a  meaning  which  shall 
not  long  lie  hidden.  The  painted  eyes  look 
upon  me  with  a  warning  that  the  work  for 
which  I  was  born  is  at  hand.  In  God's  name, 
let  it  come  quickly  ! 


VIII. 

some  time  after  this  entry  there  are  few 
coherent  words  in  Beverly's  faded  old 
journal.  Indeed,  I  thought  for  a  while  that 
there  was  nothing  to  show  what  happened  to 
him  in  that  Roman  world  —  so  near  us  in  time, 
so  far  away  in  all  things  else  —  until  he  began 
to  write  again  with  such  calmness  as  it  was  his 
lot  to  know.  One  day,  however,  I  found  among 
some  papers  of  my  father's  a  packet  of  letters 
from  Cleveland.  One  or  two  of  them  throw 
light  on  Beverly's  story  ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  cannot  do  better  than  give  here  the  pas 
sages  that  have  told  me  all  I  know  of  what 
happened  now. 

"  A  queer  thing  has  happened  to  Beverly," 
writes  Cleveland,  "  after  the  fashion  that  queer 
things  have  of  happening  to  queer  people.  I 


The  Duchess  HJmilia.  101 

sometimes  think  that  our  ideas  of  the  common 
place  are  only  the  quintessence  of  our  own  pe 
culiar  sort  of  queerness.  A  Roman  studio  is  my 
bread-mill,  for  example ;  and  you  probably  find 
it  hard  to  imagine  a  life  that  is  not  busied  with 
making  cotton  and  money  up  on  the  Merrimac. 
But  I  must  come  back  to  Beverly,  or  they  will 
be  making  you  pay  double  postage. 

"  I  told  you  how  he  had  been  taken  up  by  the 
Cardinal  Colonna,  who  has  never  been  known  to 
do  anything  civil  to  a  foreigner  before.  We 
have  lived  here  in  his  palace  for  a  couple  of 
years,  and  it  is  as  much  as  ever  that  we  have 
seen  him  drive  out  in  his  coach.  In  fact,  all  the 
Romans  are  ridiculously  exclusive.  I  do  not 
imagine  that  they  exclude  us  from  a  particularly 
amusing  society. 

"  Why  the  Cardinal  should  have  taken  a  fancy 
to  Beverly  I  could  not  quite  see.  But  as  I  had 
happened  to  be  in  a  way  of  letting  his  chaplain 
know  that  Beverly  had  a  comfortable  fortune, 
I  thought  it  possible  that  they  had  a  notion  of 
making  a  match  for  him  with  a  handsome  young 


102  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

woman,  who  is  a  niece  of  the  Cardinal's,  and  has 
no  dowry  to  speak  of.  This  seemed  improbable, 
though  ;  Romans  have  great  ideas  of  family,  and 
do  not  appreciate  that  we  have  such  a  thing  as 
social  distinction  without  titles.  Seriously,  I 
don't  believe  that  they  understand  the  differ 
ence  between  me  and  a  common  native  copyist. 

"  Beverty's  queer  adventure  explains  the 
whole  matter.  A  few  days  ago  he  came  to  me 
with  a  disturbed  countenance,  and  demanded  a 
private  interview.  So  we  sat  in  conclave  in  my 
studio  ;  and  there,  with  much  mystery,  he  pro 
duced  a  miniature  which,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
make  out  his  rather  incoherent  story,  he  seems 
to  have  stolen  from  the  Cardinal  Colonna.  Of 
course  I  shall  make  him  return  it. 

"  The  miniature  was  the  portrait  of  a  woman, 
painted  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  When  Bev 
erly  showed  it  to  me  I  saw  nothing  remarkable 
about  it  except  a  curiously  familiar  look.  I 
could  hardly  have  seen  the  original,  yet  the  face 
struck  me  as  one  that  I  knew  perfectly  well.  I 
asked  him  who  it  was.  He  said  that  he  did  not 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  103 

know.  Whereupon  I  remarked  that  it  was  very 
well  painted. 

" '  Whom  is  it  like  ? '  he  said,  interrupting  me. 

" 4 1  don't  know,'  said  I. 

" '  Look  !  look ! '  he  exclaimed  rather  wildly. 
So  I  looked ;  and  all  of  a  sudden  I  saw  that  the 
face  was  curiously  like  his  own. 

44  The  likeness  was  not  in  feature  nor  in 
color;  it  was  in  expression,  —  in  what  I  call 
type.  You  know  I  have  alwaj's  had  a  theory 
that  if  you  got  together  a  dozen  people  of  any 
race  you  please,  from  Italians  to  Esquimaux, 
taking  care  that  no  two  of  them  looked  alike, 
and  then  carefully  studied  each  face,  you  would 
have  classified  humanity.  Everybody  you  meet 
will  look  like  one  of  the  lot.  In  other  words, 
the  chance  that  one  man  will  look  like  another 
is  about  one  in  twelve.  Of  course  in  this 
hybrid  nineteenth  century  most  people  will  look 
like  two  or  three  others.  Nothing  is  rarer  than 
a  pure  type.  Now,  the  one  thing  that  has 
chiefly  impressed  me  in  Beverly  is  that  his  face 
is  as  purety  typical  in  its  own  way  as  Napoleon's 


104  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

was  in  another.  And  this  woman,  whose 
picture  he  had  found;  was  a  remarkably  pure 
example  of  the  same  type  as  Beverly's.  As  far 
as  I  could  judge  from  the  portrait,  they  were 
no  more  alike  in  feature  than  you  with  your 
Roman  nose  and  I  with  my  pug.  All  the  same 
the  likeness  was  really  startling.  It  is  not  sur 
prising  that  Beverly,  who  has  not  paid  much 
attention  to  this  sort  of  thing,  thought  the 
resemblance  uncanny. 

"Indeed,  I  could  not  make  him  understand 
my  view  of  the  matter,  though  in  order  to 
explain  it  I  sketched  two  or  three  types  in  a 
way  that  seemed  to  me  rather  good.  He  in 
sisted  that  there  was  some  hidden  mystery 
about  the  likeness,  and  that  the  Cardinal 
Colonna  knew  what  the  mystery  was  and 
would  not  tell.  The  Cardinal,  it  seems,  has 
had  a  way  of  looking  at  this  picture  when 
Beverly  was  about,  and  has  acted  as  if  he 
attached  a  good  deal  of  value  to  it. 

"  Here,  I  thought,  was  a  clue.  I  examined 
the  miniature  with  care.  The  frame  was  sur- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  105 

mounted  with  a  ducal  coronet.  The  Colonna 
arms  were  worked  into  it.  In  a  moment  it 
flashed  across  me  that  this  was  the  portrait  of  the 
beautiful  Duchess  Emilia,  the  wife  of  the  Cardi 
nal's  brother.  They  say  that  the  Cardinal  was 
once  her  lover.  The  story  is  rather  interesting." 

And  here  Cleveland  goes  on  to  tell  the  story 
of  the  Duchess  Emilia,  much  as  I  have  told  it 
already. 

"  The  whole  matter  is  clear  enough  now,'*  he 
concludes.  "  The  old  Cardinal,  whose  wits  are 
pretty  well  worn  out  with  praying  and  waiting 
for  the  chair  of  Saint  Peter,  has  been  carried 
away  with  the  likeness  between  the  dead  Duchess 
and  Beverly.  Probably  he  has  a  misty  sort  of 
idea  that  Beverly  is  her  son  and  possibly  his. 
I  explained  this  to  Beverly.  He  said  nothing ; 
but  shook  his  head  incredulously,  and  seemed 
dreadfully  shocked  at  the  naughtiness  of  his 
double.  He  is  not  in  a  healthy  state  of  mind." 

The  rest  of  this  letter  has  nothing  to  do 
with  Beverly.  Another  letter,  however,  gives 


106  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

a  glimpse  of  him  and  of  what  was  going  on 
about  him.  I  do  not  know  exactly  when  it 
was  written.  It  is  dated  simply  "  Wednesday," 
after  a  fashion  affected  by  Cleveland,  who 
avoided  formulas  which  suggested  the  commer 
cial  traditions  of  his  family.  On  the  whole,  I 
think  that  it  was  probably  written  some  little 
time  after  the  next  entries  which  I  am  going 
to  quote  from  Beverly's  journal ;  but  in  a  nar 
rative  so  fragmentary  as  this  chronological  order 
is  of  little  importance.  I  think  that  Cleveland's 
second  letter  may  best  be  put  here. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say,"  he  writes,  "  that  we 
have  had  a  misunderstanding  with  Beverly.  I 
hardly  know  who  is  to  blame.  Abby  began  it, 
I  suppose ;  but  really  he  had  no  business  to 
take  offence.  For  the  rest,  it  does  not  amount 
to  much.  By  the  time  this  reaches  you  there 
will  doubtless  have  been  a  grand  reconciliation. 

"  Abby,  you  know,  is  a  tremendous  Protes 
tant, —  a  good  deal  more  of  one  than  she  used 
to  be  at  home.  For  here  she  sees  hardly  any- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  107 

body  except  travelling  English  people,  who  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  Pope  is  Anti-Christ, 
and  that  all  priests  have  cloven  hoofs.  They 
are  fond  of  being  presented  at  the  Vatican  all 
the  same,  —  perhaps  from  a  natural  desire  to 
get  a  notion  of  the  lurid  surroundings  from 
which  their  apostolic  faith  is  sure  to  deliver 
them  in  the  next  world.  So  Abby  hates  a 
priest,  with  a  beautifully  simple  hatred. 

."  When  Beverly  took  to  going  to  the  Cardinal 
Colonna's  she  was  much  alarmed  for  his  spirit 
ual  welfare.  She  had  no  doubt  that  they  were 
trying  to  pervert  him,  as  she  expressed  it.  J 
did  not  think  her  idea  very  plausible,  and  told 
her  so.  Beverly  is  not  worth  the  trouble  of  a 
full-blown  cardinal.  His  fortune  might  deserve 
the  attention  of  a  third-rate  monsignor,  but  cer 
tainly  not  of  a  more  exalted  personage.  But 
Abby  is  remarkably  feminine.  She  does  not 
often  have  an  idea  of  her  own  ;  and  when  she 
gets  hold  of  one,  I  think  it  improbable  that  the 
devil  himself  could  shake  it.  Reasoning  is  to 
her  what  a  shower  is  to  a  cluck.  She  is  inclined 


108  The  Duchess  HJmilia. 

to  believe  that  the  Cardinal  Colonna  had  the 
mysterious  picture  painted  for  the  special  pur 
pose  of  luring  Beverly  into  the  Romish  fold. 

"A  few  days  ago  they  had  it  out  in  spite  of 
me.  Beverly  came  to  dine  with  us.  He  had 
been  at  the  Cardinal  Colonna's  during  the  day, 
and  happened  to  mention  it.  Whereupon  Abby 
began  to  dilate  upon  the  errors  of  Romanism 
and  the  trickery  of  priests.  Finally,  she  .de 
clared  her  opinion  that  he  was  in  great  danger. 
He  .flushed,  and  professed  not  to  understand  her. 
She  proceeded  to  state  that  in  her  opinion  the 
Cardinal  Colonna  was  laying  snares  for  his  soul. 

"  '  You  are  quite  wrong,'  said  Beverly.  '  The 
Cardinal  Colonna  has  never  spoken  to  me  of 
religion.' 

" '  He  will  not  speak  to  you,'  said  Abby.  '  He 
is  too  crafty.  He  will  act  upon  you  without 
your  knowing  it.' 

"  '  If  so,'  said  Beverly  shortly,  '  so  be  it.' 

" '  Richard,'  said  Abby,  with  much  solemnity, 
'  your  danger  is  even  greater  than  I  thought. 
1  must  protest  against  your  entering  the  Cardi- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  109 

nal's  doors  again.  Heaven  knows  what  may 
come  of  it.' 

" '  Then,'  said  Beverly,  '  we  will  leave  it  to 
Heaven.  I  must  beg  you  to  say  no  more.' 

"  But  Abby  would  not  be  silenced.  She  went 
on  to  produce  some  tracts  with  which  she  had 
been  furnished  by  an  Anglican  parson.  And 
before  I  knew  it,  Beverly  had  arisen  and  stalked 
out  of  the  room  in  a  dudgeon,  followed  by 
Abby's  not  very  conciliatory  assurance  that  she 
should  pray  for  him. 

"  This  was  bad  enough.  He  has  not  been 
near  us  since.  Still,  I  was  not  mixed  up  in  it. 
The  next  day,  however,  as  luck  would  have  it, 
came  another  difficulty,  which  embroiled  me. 
You  know  that  I  have  been  negotiating  with 
the  Colonnas  for  a  Titian.  A  man  named 
Slocum,  from  Providence,  wants  to  buy  it. 
You  know  him,  I  think,  in  a  business  way. 
Well,  after  no  end  of  trouble  I  had  arranged 
a  bargain  which  seemed  satisfactory ;  but  when 
it  came  to  making  the  final  arrangements  there 
turned  out  to  be  a  difficulty.  Slocum  wanted 


110  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

to  pay  in  the  damaged  kind  of  currency  that 
most  Italians  are  contented  to  put  up  with. 
The  Countess  Barbarini,  a  vicious  old  harri 
dan  if  ever  there  was  one,  insisted  that  the 
price  should  be  paid  in  gold.  Things  came  to 
a  standstill  again  ;  and  bargaining  enough  began 
to  delight  the  souls  of  all  the  dead  Yankees. 
Beverly  happened  to  hear  of  the  affair.  He 
was  in  my  studio  one  afternoon  when  Slocum 
called.  As  soon  as  Slocum  was  gone  Beverly 
declared  that  he  would  buy  the  picture  himself 
rather  than  have  it  desecrated  by  such  chaffering. 
It  is  a  fine  Magdalene,  a  remarkable  piece  of  color 
ing  which  has  taken  Beverly's  eye.  He  requested 
me  to  tell  the  Countess  that  he  would  pay  her 
price.  Of  course  I  was  in  duty  bound  to  warn 
Slocum.  And  Slocum  thereupon  offered  to  pay 
a  lot  more.  '  He  did  n't  propose,'  he  remarked, 
'to  let  nobody  get  ahead  of  him.'  Evidently 
he  would  pay  as  much  as  anybody  else  would 
offer.  There  was  no  sense  in  using  Beverly  as 
a  cat's-paw.  So  I  arranged  matters  for  Slocum 
and  wrote  to  Beverly  that  he  had  been  outbid. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  Ill 

"  He  sent  me  back  a  single  line :  '  It  is  best 
as  it  is,  I  suppose.'  That  was  all.  He  has  not 
come  near  me  since.  You  would  fancy  that  I 
had  done  him  an  injury. 

"  Slpcum's  behavior  about  the  Titian  is  di 
verting.  He  has  paid  a  round  sum  for  it 
without  a  murmur.  Now  he  is  making  arrange 
ments  to  send  it  home  by  a  third-rate  sailing 
ship  from  Civita  Vecchia,  because  that  will  save 
freight.  It  would  cost  him  fifty  or  seventy-five 
dollars  more  to  send  it  safe  by  a  regular  line. 

"  By  the  way,  it  is  certain  that  the  Colonnas 
had  no  idea  of  capturing  Beverly  for  their 
handsome  niece.  She  has  just  been  formally 
betrothed  to  the  Prince  Palchi,  a  sort  of 
Roman  Rothschild.  He  has  a  fortune  big 
enough  for  three ;  his  grandfather  was  a  peas 
ant.  He  wants  blood ;  the  Colonuas  want 
money.  It  is  a  capital  match." 

And  then  Cleveland  wanders  off  to  other 
matters.  Of  Beverly  he  says  no  more.  Nor 
does  Beverly's  journal  speak  of  him  for  some 


112  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

time  to  come.  The  breach  which  was  opened 
by  the  well-meant  meddling  of  Mrs.  Cleveland 
and  the  perfectly  business-like  behavior  of  her 
husband  seems  never  quite  to  have  closed.  I 
suspect  that  the  Clevelands  were  more  to  blame 
than  the  artist's  letter  would  indicate.  To  have 
their  kinsman  walk  over  their  heads  into"  a  soci 
ety  from  which  they  were  excluded  was  certainly 
annoying.  Probably  they  showed  their  annoy 
ance  without  meaning  to.  But  it  is  not  worth 
while  for  me  to  waste  time  in  speculations. 

One  word,  however,  I  may  add  to  this  chapter. 
Mr.  Slocum's  Magdalene  never  reached  America. 
The  ship  in  which  he  sent  it  from  Civita  Vec- 
chia  sprung  a  leak  in  mid-ocean.  There  she 
was  met  by  a  steamer,  which  saved  her  crew 
and  left  her  to  her  fate.  So  the  great  Titian 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Atlantic. 

Now  I  must  come  back  to  Beverly,  whose 
journal  begins  to  grow  coherent  once  more. 


IX. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 


COLONNA  !  —  until  Cleveland 
spoke  the  name  I  had  never  heard  it. 
Yet  it  echoed  through  my  mind,  raising  up 
answering  thoughts,  as  a  trumpet-blast,  they 
say,  rouses  the  fading  memories  of  an  age-worn 
soldier.  These  thoughts  are  all  confused  ;  but 
I  can  see  enough  to  know  that  they  are  no 
thoughts  of  peace.  And  strive  how  I  may  I 
cannot  lay  them  to  the  rest  whence  they  have 
sprung  into  being.  It  is  a  mere  guess  of  Cleve 
land's  which  tells  me  that  the  face  of  this  por 
trait  that  lies  before  me,  the  face  that  1  have 
known  as  mine,  is  the  face  of  the  sinful  woman 
who  lived  and  died  here  before  I  came  into  the 
world,  —  for  she  died,  they  tell  me,  in  the  very 
year  in  which  I  was  born.  It  cannot  be,  men 
would  say,  that  in  the  life  through  which  I  have 
8 


114  The  Duchess  Umilia. 

moved  hither  from  the  quiet  places  where  first 
I  looked  on  the  light,  her  being  can  have  had  to 
do  with  mine.  Yet  day  by  day  and  hour  by 
hour  I  am  growing  to  know  that  the  message 
of  the  portrait  is  a  message  from  her,  —  from 
Emilia  Colonna. 

Her  name  sends  through  me  a  thrill  deeper 
than  the  thrill  that  came  from  her  face  alone, 
when  her  name  was  still  a  secret.  It  arouses 
again  the  thoughts  that  came  to  me  when  I 
stood  before  the  great  Titian.  Her  life  was 
Magdalene's,  with  all  its  agony,  and  with  no 
sainthood  to  bless  its  end.  I  seem  to  see  her 
deep  in  the  toils  of  sin,  casting  heavenward, 
from  her  Roman  palace,  eyes  that  cannot 
pierce  the  ceilings  whence  the  painted  gods 
of  the  pagans  grin  down  upon  her  with  smiles 
that  the  old  Christians  taught  were  the  smiles 
of  Hell.  I  seem  to  see,  too,  the  old  Cardinal 
in  the  midst  of  his  prayer.  Between  them 
there  is  an  empty  place.  I  press  forward  to 
take  it:  and  the  rolling  clouds  gather  about 
me  again,  and  I  am  in  a  great  mist,  moving 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  115 

I  know  not  whither.     In  God's  name,  let  the 
light  come ! 

•         •         •         •         •        •      •  •         •         • 

They  have  been  haggling  over  the  great 
Titian  as  if  it  were  some  trumpery  trinket  in 
a  Roman  shop, —  the  grinning  Florentine,  and 
the  hard-faced  Countess,  and  the  sharp-voiced 
Yankee.  I  have  bidden  Cleveland  take  it  from 
them.  It  shall  be  mine.  To  look  at  it  gives 
me  no  delight ;  but  when  I  look  at  it,  thoughts 
come  to  me  on  which  it  is  right  that  my  mind 
should  dwell.  For  me,  for  me  alone,  the  old 
Venetian  drew  it  unawares,  three  hundred  years 
ago,  and  left  it  behind  him,  never  dreaming  of 
its  mission.  It  shall  not  be  dishonored  by  the 
barter  of  these  hagglers. 

The  great  Titian  is  gone.  It  is  best  as  it  is, 
I  suppose.  That  marvellous  form  will  pass  out 
of  my  life :  if  time  will  let  it  fade  out  of  my 
memory  too,  I  shall  be  the  happier  if  not  the 
better.  Yet  I  am  sick  at  heart  when  I  think  of 
the  Magdalene,  in  all  her  old-world  glory,  spread 


116  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

out  before  the  eyes  of  the  busy,  trading  world 
that  I  have  left  behind  me.  It  is  as  if  my  heart 
were  opened  to  be  stared  at  by  the  multitude. 
It  is  as  if  all  the  secrets  of  my  life,  the  riddles 
that  I  myself  cannot  read,  —  the  dead  Duchess 
and  the  old  Cardinal,  their  nameless  agonies  and 
mine,  —  were  flung  before  the  people  for  a  show : 
such  a  show  the  old  Romans  revelled  in  when 
the  wicked  emperors  ruled  them. 

There  is  no  strength  in  me.  I  was  cured,  I 
thought,  of  the  love  I  had  felt  for  Filippa.  I 
had  fought  out  the  fight  within  myself.  I  was 
content  to  leave  her  as  I  had  found  her,  to  look 
upon  her  from  afar  off,  to  see  her  choose  a  fitting 
mate  from  among  the  men  who  lived  about  her. 
When  I  thought  of  the  words  of  love  that  in 
my  presence  she  had  whispered  to  the  Count 
Luigi,  I  felt  my  jealous  sorrow  no  more.  "  It  is 
best  as  it  is,"  I  said.  In  my  heart  I  blessed  the 
happiness  which  I  dreamed  was  theirs. 

For  it  was  all  a  dream,  —  all  save  that  she 
may  not  be  mine,  that  my  fate  bids  me  harden 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  117 

my  heart  against  all  thoughts  that  are  not  of 
the  duty  that  shall  be  revealed  to  me  when  the 
time  shall  come.  She  will  never  be  his  any 
more  than  she  shall  be  mine.  She  is  betrothed, 
betrothed  to  bald  Palchi. 

They  make  a  grand  ceremony  of  betrothal, 
these  Romans.  I  knew  nothing  of  what  was 
doing  until  to-day,  when  once  more  I  was  mak 
ing  my  way  to  the  old  Cardinal.  I  have  said 
no  word  to  him  of  how  I  found  him  at  his 
prayer,  of  how  I  took  the  picture  that  strives 
to  show  me  how  his  life  and  mine  are  knit 
together.  But  I  have  seen  him  many  times ; 
and  each  time  that  I  have  come  to  his  presence 
I  have  felt  more  and  more  how  foul  a  lie  is  that 
which  would  whisper  that  he,  who  sheds  about 
him  the  blessing  of  holiness,  wrought  the  sin 
that  makes  the  dead  Emilia  groan.  Yet  all 
the  same  I  have  known  that  he  could  tell  me 
the  secret  that  lies  hidden  in  her  painted  eyes. 
Each  time  that  I  have  come  to  him,  I  have 
come  to  beg  that  he  would  speak.  Each  time, 
when  I  have  found  him  in  all  his  holiness,  I 


118  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

have  shrunk  from  calling  up  any  thought  of 
evil  things.  In  his  presence  I  have  been  con 
tent  to  breathe  the  air  of  peace.  Each  time  I 
have  come  from  him  with  the  words  which 
I  have  had  to  say  unspoken.  Then  each  time  I 
have  called  myself  coward,  and  bidden  myself 
gather  courage  to  ask  him  the  meaning  of  all. 

To-day  when  his  doors  were  opened  to  me, 
I  heard  an  unwonted  stir  within ;  and  found 
before  me  Monsignor  del  Bardi,  who  seemed 
to  be  awaiting  some  guest.  When  he  saw  me 
he  stepped  forward,  and  told  me  with  civil 
words  that  to-day  I  could  not  be  admitted. 
A  ceremony  was  about  to  take  place,  — the 
ceremony  of  betrothal  ;  none  but  the  kinsfolk 
of  the  couple  were  to  be  present. 

I  could  not  trust  my  ears ;  I  muttered  some 
half-foolish  questions.  Monsignor  repeated  what 
he  had  said :  — 

"I  regret  that  I  must  ask  you  to  withdraw. 
It  has  been  stipulated  that  none  but  their  rela 
tives  shall  witness  the  betrothal  of  the  Prince 
Palchi  and  the  Contessina  Filippa  Barbarini." 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  119 

Stupidly,  hardly  knowing  what  I  did,  I  turned 
away  ;  and  turning,  found  myself  face  to  face 
with  the  dapper  prince.  He  was  coming  in  full 
dress,  with  three  or  four  sparkling  orders  on  his 
breast,  to  play  his  part  in  the  ceremony.  I 
bowed,  and  spoke  words  of  formal  congratula 
tion.  Not  one  of  them  was  true.  In  an  instant 
I  was  ashamed  that  I  had  spoken  them. 

"  I  am  sensible  of  the  honor  of  your  felicita 
tions,"  said  the  little  prince,  bowing  until  his 
bald  head  was  half-way  down  to  his  varnished 
boots ;  "  I  am  indeed  the  most  fortunate  of 
men." 

And  with  that  he  passed  within  the  doors, 
which  closed  behind  him. 

When  I  was  left  alone,  I  wanted  air.  I  must 
breathe.  I  must  gather  my  thoughts  together. 
For  the  moment  all  things  save  Filippa  had  fled 
from  my  mind.  I  stumbled  down  the  great 
stairway,  hardly  knowing  where  I  trod.  A 
man  hastening  upward  was  in  my  way.  We 
stopped  face  to  face.  It  was  the  Count  Luigi. 
He  was  very  pale.  I  looked  at  him  for  an 


120  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

instant  in  silence.  His  suffering,  I  thought,  is 
more  than  mine.  From  him  a  life  of  glorious 
happiness  is  being  snatched  away.  I  have  noth 
ing  to  complain  of  save  that  my  dreams  are  only 
dreams.  I  have  slept,  and  thought  myself  a 
good  spirit  breathing  blessings  upon  men ;  I 
wake  to  find  that  I  am  none.  That  is  all.  His 
is  the  real  misery. 

He  looked  at  me  as  I  looked  at  him.  In  his 
face  I  saw  all  the  suffering  that  he  felt.  In 
mine  I  trust  he  saw  the  sympathy  that  filled  my 
heart.  I  held  him  out  my  hand. 

"  They  have  told  me  what  is  passing,"  I  said. 
"  God  be  with  you,  friend." 

He  stood  for  a  moment  without  a  word.  Then, 
of  a  sudden,  he  flung  his  arms  about  me  and 
kissed  my  cheek. 

"  God  bless  you  for  your  gentle  word,"  he 
half  sobbed.  "  You  are  worthy  to  be  called  a 
friend.  You  do  not  belong  in  this  foul  Old 
World  of  ours.  You  come  from  a  land  where 
men  are  men  and  not  slaves,  where  life  is  life 
and  not  a  prison." 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  121 

Then,  with  another  embrace,  he  was  gone  ; 
and  I  was  left  alone.  I  heard  the  great  doors 
close  behind  him.  As  I  passed  through  the 
court-yard  and  out  through  the  narrow  street, 
I  made  my  way  among  blazoned  coaches  and 
trampling  horses  that  had  borne  their  masters  to 
the  grand  ceremony.  And  I  wandered  aimless 
through  the  Roman  streets,  while  in  the  palace 
that  I  had  left  behind  me  Filippa  was  pledging 
her  faith  to  the  dapper  prince. 

It  must  not  be.  It  shall  not  be.  Her  life 
shall  not  be  flung  away  upon  such  a  man  as  her 
hard-faced  mother  has  bidden  her  smile  on. 
Her  gallant  lover  shall  not  be  cast  aside.  I  will 
go  to  the  Cardinal  Giulio.  He  sits  alone,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  Heaven,  forgetting  the  world 
about  him  in  his  thoughts  of  the  world  to  come. 
He  knows  not,  in  his  holiness,  what  is  done 
within  his  own  doors.  I  will  show  him.  A  word 
from  him  shall  cast  down  the  evil  edifice  that 
they  are  rearing ;  for  with  all  his  holiness  he  is 
still  the  head  of  their  house,  and  in  that  house 


122  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

his  word  is  law.  I  will  go  to  him.  He  will  speak 
the  word  that  shall  free  her.  And  then,  on  my 
way  through  life,  I  shall  have  done  one  small 
good  deed ;  I  shall  not  have  waited  idly  for  the 
work  that  is  preparing. 

I  have  seen  him,  alone  again  in  the  great  room 
which  his  presence  had  seemed  to  sanctify.  I 
am  come  away  full  of  disquiet.  I  have  built  me 
a  house  of  dreams  ;  a  breath  has  cast  it  down. 

He  was  alone,  I  say;  and  welcomed  me  with 
as  kind  a  smile  as  ever. 

"It  is  good  of  you  to  come,"  he  said  ;  "3-011 
always  bring  me  happiness."  And  he  held  out 
his  blue-veined  hand,  on  which,  as  had  grown 
my  custom,  I  pressed  my  lips.  Then  for  a  little 
while  I  was  abashed  and  said  nothing ;  but  sat 
still  as  I  had  sat  with  him  before,  full  of  confi 
dence  that  he  was  good  and  faithful,  sure  that  he 
felt  a  like  confidence  in  me.  A  woman  might 
sit  so  with  her  lover. 

Finally  I  gathered  up  my  courage,  and  asked 
him  if  he  knew  what  was  done  yesterday. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  123 

"Surely,"  he  said,  "yesterday  was  a  happy 
day  in  the  history  of  my  family.  An  alliance 
was  made  that  will  do  us  much  honor." 

I  looked  at  him  amazed.  His  face  was  calm  ; 
it  wore  a  look  of  content,  a  smile ;  but  the  smile 
was  not  like  those  that  I  was  used  to  see  on  his 
lips.  There  was  something  in  it  that  called  up 
before  me  the  smile  of  the  tricky  Florentine ; 
nay,  that  even  seemed  to  know  the  secret  of  the 
mirth  with  which  the  carven  satyrs  writhed  on 
his  great  chair. 

"  Indeed,"  he  went  on,  "  the  alliance  was  of 
my  making.  It  was  no  easy  work.  In  such 
matters  complications  come  which  one  who  has 
led  a  simple  life  like  yours  can  hardly  imagine. 
To  have  reached  this  happy  conclusion  gives 
me  great  satisfaction.  There  are  few  worldly 
things  left  to  trouble  me  now." 

Had  I  been  wrong  ?  I  wondered.  Had  my 
fancy  conjured  up  a  tragedy  when  really  all 
things  went  well  ? 

"  Does  she  love  him,  then  ?  "  I  asked,  so  ab 
ruptly  that  I  started  at  the  rudeness  of  my  voice. 


124  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  Surely  not  now,"  said  the  old  Cardinal,  with 
a  look  of  surprise.  "  What  should  a  young  girl, 
well  brought  up,  know  of  love  ?  " 

"  And  you  have  let  her  promise  herself  with 
out  love ! "  I  cried,  full  of  amazement  that  he, 
who  had  seemed  to  me  all  goodness,  looked 
with  no  frown  upon  this  evil. 

"  We  have  bidden  her  do  what  seemed  best 
to  those  who  were  most  fitted  to  judge  of  her 
welfare,"  he  answered,  with  a  dignity  that  had 
in  it  some  shade  of  reproof;  for  what  I  said 
seemed  to  him,  I  think,  meddlesome.  "  She  has 
obeyed  with  dutiful  readiness." 

With  that  he  spoke  some  other  words,  of 
commonplace  matters,  to  show  me,  I  suppose, 
that  we  had  said  enough  of  this.  But  a  spirit 
was  aroused  within  me  that  would  not  be  si 
lenced.  I  broke  out  with  many  words,  asking 
him  what  good  could  come  of  a  match  like  this  ; 
what  manner  of  life  would  be  theirs,  who  were 
bound  together  by  formal  words  and  by  no 
closer  bond. 

He  looked  at  me  with  displeasure.     His  face 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  125 

grew  severe  ;  it  flushed  as  if  with  anger ;  for 
the  first  time  I  saw  it  lose  the  paleness  of  age. 
Such  life  would  be  theirs,  he  said  with  growing 
sternness,  as  had  been  the  life  of  their  fathers 
before  them,  as  had  been  the  life  of  their  people 
for  generations.  Marriage  must  be,  that  the  race 
of  men  may  be  perpetuated  on  the  earth  ;  and  so 
God  through  the  Church  has  sanctified  it.  But 
marriage  should  be  kept  free  from  carnal  lust ; 
human  creatures  who  grow  to  love  one  another 
too  much  lose  sight  of  the  higher  things  toward 
which  they  ought  always  to  look.  And  so  a 
marriage  like  this,  made  by  thoughtful  friends 
who  know  what  is  best,  is  a  purer  thing,  and  a 
holier,  than  the  sanctified  amour  which  I  seemed 
to  think  the  true  one.  Such  plans  as  his  bind 
bodies  alone  together,  and  leave  husband  and 
wife  soul-free  to  fulfil  the  aspirations  that  arise 
within  them.  Such  thoughts  as  mine  desecrate 
the  sacrament. 

As  he  spoke,  my  hand  had  wandered  about 
my  breast,  and  had  fallen  upon  the  miniature 
of  Emilia  Colouna,  which  I  carried  there.  I 


126  The  Duchess  HJmiUa. 

drew  it  forth,  urged  by  an  impulse  of  which 
I  had  small  consciousness.  When  his  voice 
ceased,  his  eye  was  fixed  upon  me,  full  of  the 
displeasure  that  had  led  him  to  rebuke  me  with 
all  the  authority  of  the  Church  ;  and  he  drew  a 
deep  breath,  like  one  who  has  spoken  things 
that  may  not  be  answered. 

I  made  no  answer  ;  but  laid  the  portrait  be 
fore  him,  asking  him  whose  face  it  showed. 

The  flush  left  his  face  as  he  bent  down  his 
head  and  looked  at  what  I  showed  him.  I 
thought  that  he  would  have  fainted,  for  he 
trembled  so  that  I  could  see  his  hands  quiver, 
as  they  tried  to  grasp  the  arms  of  his  chair  and 
hold  themselves  firm.  But  he  set  his  lips,  and 
kept  his  voice  calm. 

"  It  is  Emilia,  my  brother's  wife,"  he  said. 
"  How  came  it  to  you  ?  " 

"  What  manner  of  life  was  hers  ?  "  I  asked 
him  solemnly. 

He  stretched  out  his  hand,  and  took  the  pic 
ture,  and  held  it  close  to  his  dull  eyes. 

"  I  prayed  Heaven  that  I  might  see  her  face 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  127 

no  more,"  he  said,  as  if  lie  knew  not  that  I  was 
by.  "  When  I  arose  from  my  prayer  her  face 
was  gone  ;  and  I  troubled  myself  riot  to  know 
how  it  was  gone,  for  my  prayer  was  granted. 
And  now  it  comes  again,  to  drag  me  back  to 
the  evil  days  of  old,  with  its  witch's  eyes, 
with  its  devil's  smile.  I  will  look  on  it  no 
more.  No  man  shall  look  on  it  again." 

With  that  he  stretched  out  his  arm  as  if  to 
lay  the  face  of  the  portrait  upon  the  table  by 
his  side,  but  stopped  half-way,  and  brought 
it  back  before  his  eyes ;  and  I  could  see  that 
his  thin  fingers  clutched  it  so  tightly  that  the 
fretted  frame  cut  them  deep.  Then,  of  a  sud 
den,  he  raised  it  and  kissed  it  as  he  might  have 
kissed  the  lips  it  mimicked.  But  when  he  felt 
its  touch  he  started  as  if  from  a  poisoned  sting ; 
and  with  a  great  effort  he  flung  it  from  him, 
and  it  fell  and  was  shattered  to  pieces  on  the 
marble  floor.  Then  he  leaned  back  in  his 
great  chair,  and  closed  his  eyes ;  and  his  pale 
face  was  like  the  face  of  a  dead  man  whose 
last  moments  knew  no  peace. 


128  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

What  made  me  speak,  I  know  not ;  but  I 
spoke  again,  startled  to  hear  my  own  voice. 

"  What  manner  of  life  was  hers  ? "  I  heard 
myself  say  once  more,  —  "  hers,  whose  marriage 
was  such  as  you  would  make  Filippa's  ?  What 
blessing,  what  purity  of  spirit  came  to  her  from 
the  union  that  your  Church  had  blest?  Would 
you  have  Filippa  live  as  in  the  olden  time 
Emilia  Colonna  lived  ?  " 

The  old  Cardinal  had  started  up.  Resting 
his  hands  upon  the  arms  of  his  great  chair,  he 
had  raised  himself  to  his  feet.  He  stood  before 
me,  holding  himself  firm  upon  the  limbs  that  in 
common  times  could  hardly  bear  his  weight.  He 
raised  himself  up  until  he  stood  erect,  and  in  his 
sweeping  robes  looked  taller  than  common  men. 

"  Stop ! "  he  cried,  lifting  his  hand  with  a 
gesture  of  command.  "  No  man  speaks  her 
name  to  me  !  I  have  cherished  you  because  in 
you  I  found  a  memory  of  what  she  was,  purged 
of  the  old  sins  that  clung  to  her  life  and  mine. 
It  was  a  new  sin,  —  a  devil's  snare.  Leave 
me  !  Come  to  me  no  more  ! " 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  129 

I  stood  abashed.  I  knew  not  what  I  should 
do. 

"  Leave  me  !  "  he  cried  again  ;  and  he  moved 
his  hand  with  a  passionate  gesture,  as  if  he 
would  sweep  me  away  like  some  evil  thing. 

Then  I  stammered  words  that  should  depre 
cate  his  anger.  But  interrupting,  he  bade  me 
leave  him,  more  firmly  than  before.  So,  full 
of  trouble,  I  turned  away.  And  as  I  went  I 
heard  his  slow  steps  tottering  toward  the  great 
crucifix  where  I  had  seen  him  at  his  prayer. 

And  this,  men  would  tell  me,  should  be  the 
end  of  all.  My  life  has  touched  the  life  of 
another,  greater  by  far  than  I.  My  eyes  have 
been  dazzled  with  his  greatness ;  he  has  seemed 
to  me  all  pure  and  good.  He  has  deigned  to 
let  me  approach  him  for  a  while  ;  and  I,  grown 
overbold,  have  presumed  too  much.  Then  he 
has  cast  me  out  with  no  gentle  words,  showing 
himself  other  than  I  thought  him.  He  has 
spoken  the  language  of  this  Old  World,  whose 
corruptions  we  of  the  New  cast  off  when  our 
9 


130  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

fathers  crossed  the  stormy  seas  to  plant  them 
selves  in  the  forests  that  knew  no  evil.  I  have 
dreamed  a  dream,  men  would  tell  me.  I  should 
rub  my  eyes  and  awake. 

I  would  that  I  could  do  their  bidding ;  but  it 
may  not  be.  The  bonds  that  bind  me  to  Giulio 
Colonna  may  not  be  broken  thus.  What  they 
are  I  cannot  tell.  Whither  his  life  and  mine 
shall  be  carried  together  I  cannot  see.  But  the 
old  knowledge  that  came  to  me  when  I  saw 
him  first  is  no  whit  less  clear  than  before.  The 
work  for  which  I  was  born,  the  work  toward 
which  I  have  travelled  even  as  the  wise  men 
of  old  travelled  toward  the  star  of  which  they 
knew  not  the  meaning,  is  a  work  that  has  to  do 
with  him  in  his  dark  palace,  and  with  the  dead 
Duchess,  whose  eyes  gaze  at  me  still  in  memory 
as  they  gazed  yesterday  from  the  image  that 
lies  shivered  at  his  feet. 

Yes,  we  are  bound  together,  I  know  not  how ; 
we  are  bound  as  lovers  might  be  bound,  by  a 
common  fate  which  lies  beyond  our  ken.  The 
time  shall  come,  in  some  other  world  if  not  in 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  131 

this,  when  Giulio  Colonna  and  I  shall  cling 
together,  shall  move  together  through  the  eter 
nities,  working  out  the  destinies  for  which  we 
were  born.  But  it  shall  not  be  as  it  has  seemed 
to  me  before.  He  shall  not  be  my  leader.  Nay, 
I  shall  rather  be  his,  for  we  are  fallen  on  evil 
times,  and  of  their  evil  I  know  as  much  as  he ; 
and  the  impulse  that  comes  to  me  now  bids  me 
forget  his  angry  words,  and  hold  out  my  hand, 
and  lead  him  forth  from  sinful  Rome,  full  of 
the  whoredoms  of  the  ages,  to  the  light  of  God, 
which  gleams  through  the  clouds  that  writhe 
about  me  as  I  struggle  on  alone. 

Let  the  light  come  !     Let  it  come  quickly  ! 


X. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

*  I  ^O-NIGHT,  when  I  was  alone,  there  came 
a  hasty  knock  at  my  door.  I  went  to 
answer  it.  Before  me  stood  a  man  wrapped 
in  a  cloak.  I  could  not  see  his  face  ;  I  lifted 
my  candle  above  my  head  and  peered  at  him 
in  the  darkness. 

"  It  is  you,"  he  said  ;  "  I  am  glad."  I  knew 
his  voice.  He  was  the  Count  Luigi  Orsini.  He 
glided  in  with  a  stealthy  step,  and  closed  the 
door  very  quietly.  Then  he  turned  to  me  again, 
flinging  back  his  dark  cloak. 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  are  here  alone,"  he  said. 
"  You  alone  spoke  words  of  comfort  to  me  on 
that  day  when  they  were  tearing  out  my  heart. 
To  you  alone  I  must  say  farewell." 

For  a  moment  I  thought  that  he  meant  to 
take  his  life,  to  snatch  if  he  could  in  another 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  133 

world  the  peace  his  kinsfolk  have  stolen  from 
him  in  this.  I  knew  not  what  to  say.  I  stood 
looking  at  him  full  of  uneasiness.  But  he  met 
my  gaze  with  a  fearless  eye,  with  a  smile  of 
courage,  not  of  despair. 

"  You  are  an  American,"  he  said  ;  "  I  can 
trust  you.  You  come  from  a  land  where  men 
are  free,  where  life  has  broken  its  shackles. 
You  are  grown  so  used  to  freedom  that  you 
do  not  know  its  worth.  We  know  it  here. 
Freedom  has  not  dwelt  in  Italy  for  a  thousand 
years.  All  the  men  of  your  great  continent 
are  brothers;  they  are  called  by  a  common 
name,  which  thrills  them  when  they  hear  it 
spoken.  Here  there  are  no  Italians  ;  we  may 
not  speak  that  word.  We  are  Romans  or  Flor 
entines  or  Neapolitans ;  we  must  bow  down 
before  one  or  another  of  the  little  princes  and 
priests  who  are  tearing  the  entrails  of  Italy. 
That  is  a  noble  destiny  to  be  born  to !  " 

He  stopped  speaking.  All  his  meaning,  I 
think,  could  not  have  come  to  me ;  for  the 
charm  that  Italy  had  cast  upon  me  rose  strong 


134  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

in  my  mind ;  and  I  began  to  speak  of  the 
beauty  of  his  country,  to  tell  him  how  it  had 
found  an  empty  place  in  my  heart  and  filled 
it. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  Italy  has  lovers.  She  has 
always  had  them.  Such  beauty  as  hers  cannot 
fail  of  love.  But  her  lovers  are  like  the  lovers 
of  a  harlot.  They  breathe  their  passion  only  for 
their  pleasure;  and  when  their  love  is  sated, 
they  fling  her  money,  and  leave  her  to  her  fate. 
Well!  it  is  over  with  me  now.  I  have  cast 
away  the  mask.  I  leave  Rome  to-night.  If  I 
stayed  it  would  be  in  a  prison." 

Even  then  I  did  not  understand  him  ;  and 
asked  him  what  was  his  crime,  fearing  that  in 
his  passion  he  had  done  some  evil  thing. 

"  I  have  dared  to  be  an  Italian  as  you  are 
an  American,"  he  said.  And  then  he  told  his 
story  as  we  sat  together  in  my  room,  where  the 
dim  candle-light  made  the  walls  look  vaster  than 
structures  reared  by  human  hands. 

The  men  in  Rome  are  not  few  who  feel  as  he 
has  spoken  to-night.  If  they  speak  aloud  they 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  135 

are  flung  into  prison  ;  there  they  die  in  silence. 
So  they  meet  by  stealth,  and  plan  in  secret  for  a 
time  when  Italy  shall  at  last  be  Italy,  —  a  time 
which  they  hope  is  at  hand.  For  months  his 
life  has  been  one  that  no  man  can  lead  with 
safety,  though  each  who  leads  it  hopes  that  he 
may  escape  the  suspicion  which  must  stop  his 
work  for  the  cause  he  loves.  Soon  or  late,  each 
man's  time  comes  at  last.  The  Count  Luigi's 
time  was  come  to-night.  Monsignor  dei  Bardi 
had  sent  for  him. 

"  That  black  serpent  glides  everywhere,"  said 
the  Count ;  "  when  I  saw  his  scowling  face  I 
knew  what  was  coming.  He  hopes,  you  know, 
that  the  Cardinal  Colonna  will  be  made  pope. 
You  have  seen  how  he  makes  the  old  man  play 
the  dying  saint,  as  Sixtus  and  Leo  the  Twelfth 
played  it  before  him.  When  Capellari1  sickens, 
Monsignor  will  give  the  viaticum  to  the  Cardi 
nal  Giulio.  Then  he  will  bring  him  back  by  a 
miracle  to  a  feeble  life  that  shall  tickle  the 
ambition  of  the  conclave.  If  the  Cardinal  Giulio 
1  Gregory  XVI. 


136  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

is  made  pope,  Monsignor  will  come  to  him  and 
say,  '  Do  by  me  as  I  have  done  by  you.'  Then 
he  will  be  made  cardinal;  and  who  knows  what 
may  come  after  that?  All  his  sly  life  is  spent 
in  wriggling  toward  the  red  hat  that  he  is  try 
ing  to  put  in  the  Cardinal  Giulio's  gift.  And 
I,  he  finds, — a  near  friend  of  His  Eminence, 
almost  a  member  of  his  household,  —  am  play 
ing  at  games  that  are  forbidden." 

Then  he  went  on  to  tell  how  Monsignor  had 
stormed  and  threatened,  trying  to  make  him 
tell  the  secrets  of  his  friends.  If  he  would 
speak  out,  the  priest  promised,  he  should  have 
safety  and  honors  ;  for  the  Pope  knows  how 
to  reward  his  friends,  let  them  be  faithless  as 
devils  to  all  other  ties.  He  is  the  Vicegerent 
of  God ;  to  serve  him  is  to  serve  Heaven,  to 
play  his  foes  false  is  to  confound  the  children 
of  Hell.  And  those  who  do  his  pleasure  on 
this  earth,  let  it  lead  them  where  it  may,  are 
sure  of  seats  among  the  saints.  So  Monsig 
nor  stood  in  his  black  robes,  and  stamped  his 
buckled  shoes,  and  grumbled  forth  the  distant 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  137 

thunders  of  the  Church  that  might  be  launched 
upon  the  heads  of  those  who  would  not  do  his 
bidding,  and  promised  rewards  in  this  world 
and  in  the  next  to  those  who  would  bend  their 
will  to  his.  And  the  Count  Luigi  stood  before 
him  and  listened,  making  no  answer. 

For  at  first  he  was  tempted  to  break  out  with 
answering  reproaches,  to  speak  as  he  had  spoken 
to  me  of  the  miseries  of  Italy,  of  the  sins  of  the 
priestcraft  that  has  ground  her  in  the  dust  for  a 
thousand  years.  But  in  a  moment  came  wiser 
counsels,  and  he  held  his  peace.  Nothing  could 
come  from  a  war  of  words  save  the  clashing  of 
the  prison  doors  that  should  shut  him  out  from 
the  world  as  they  had  shut  out  his  friends  be 
fore  him.  So  he  stood  listening  to  threats  and 
to  promises.  And  the  priest  thought  from  his 
silence  that  he  was  ready  to  speak ;  and  seizing 
a  pen  bade  him  say  out  the  words  that  should 
save  him  and  dash  to  pieces  the  plans  his  friends 
cherished  with  their  lives. 

Then  danger  gave  the  Count  counsels  that  he 
had  not  deemed  himself  wise  enough  to  hold. 


138  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

In  the  subtle  world  where  he  has  lived  he  has 
learned  the  secret  of  trickery ;  he  can  speak 
with  a  smooth  face  words  that  tell  nothing  of 
the  thoughts  that  lie  behind  them.  To-night 
this  skill  stood  him  in  good  stead.  With  well- 
counterfeited  terror  and  contrition  he  told 
Monsignor  a  long  tale  of  secrets  that  he  knew 
and  of  secrets  that  were  hidden  from  him  ;  and 
he  told  his  tale  so  well  that  the  priest  believed 
he  spoke  the  truth.  Then  he  spoke  to  the 
tricky  churchman  of  the  dangers  that  would 
beset  him  if  his  faithlessness  were  known  before 
he  had  time  to  seek  safety  ;  and  he  pledged  the 
priest  to  act  slowly  and  secretly ;  and  at  last 
had  leave  to  go.  So  he  went,  having  said  no 
word  that  could  harm  his  friends,  and  having 
gained  time. 

He  hurried  to  his  friends,  and  warned  them 
that  the  time  was  over  when  they  could  stay 
in  peace  at  Rome.  For  months  their  plans  had 
been  making  to  slip  away,  and  in  secret  places 
not  far  off  to  plan  a  great  onset  on  the  powers 
that  tear  asunder  Italy.  In  an  hour  all  was 


The  Duchess  JUmilia.  139 

settled.  Even  now,  while  I  write  these  lines, 
they  are  spurring  away  from  Rome.  Whither 
they  are  going  I  know  as  little  as  any;  but  I 
know  that  in  good  time  they  shall  come  again, 
bearing  with  them,  in  spite  of  priests  and  priest 
craft,  the  Italian  fatherland  that  the  poets  and 
the  seers  have  longed  for. 

Then,  when  there  were  few  moments  left,  he 
bethought  him  of  me,  and  of  how  I  alone  of  all 
who  knew  him  had  shown  him  that  I  cared  for 
what  he  felt  when  Filippa  pledged  her  faith  to 
Palchi.  Full  of  confidence  that  I,  a  free  Ameri 
can,  should  care  too  for  the  love  of  country 
that  exiled  him  from  his  home,  that  I  should 
not  betray  him,  he  was  come  to  press  my 
hand  once  more,  to  whisper  one  more  word  of 
gratitude  for  the  word  of  kindness  that  I  had 
spoken. 

I  could  not  understand  all  this.  The  simple 
words  he  spoke  so  frankly  were  not  so  vital 
that  it  was  worth  his  while  to  come  and  speak 
them  here  ;  for  if  he  were  found  in  the  Colonna 
palace  he  would  be  dragged  away  to  prison. 


140  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Still,  though  I  wondered  greatly,  this  seemed 
no  time  to  speak  of  my  wonder.  So  I  took  his 
hands  and  pressed  them,  and  bade  him  God 
speed.  And  then  I  thought  he  would  go. 

But  he  stood  still,  hesitating  for  a  moment. 
Then,  of  a  sudden,  he  took  a  ring  from  his  fin 
ger  and  placed  it  in  my  hand. 

"  It  is  for  her,"  he  said,  "  for  Filippa.  I  must 
go  without  a  word.  I  cannot  go  and  leave  no 
token.  No  one  will  suspect  you,  who  pass  in 
and  out  of  the  Cardinal  Giulio's  home.  Give 
her  this  when  chance  allows  you.  Whisper  as 
you  give  it  that  I  love  her  still ;  that  I  will  come 
again ;  that  her  name  shall  be  on  my  lips  through 
every  waking  hour  ;  that  her  face  shall  be  in  all 
my  dreams.  Tell  her  how  I  pray  that  mine 
may  sometimes  be  in  hers." 

I  held  the  ring.  I  had  almost  said  that  I 
would  be  the  messenger  of  his  love.  But  of  a 
sudden,  before  I  had  spoken  any  word,  there 
came  to  me  the  knowledge  of  what  this  mission 
meant.  She  was  pledged  to  another ;  the 
love  of  which  I  could  bear  the  message  was  no 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  141 

holy  love.  I  bit  my  lip  that  would  have  spoken. 
I  gave  him  back  his  ring,  saying  that  I  could 
not  do  as  he  would  have  me,  when  she  to  whom 
he  sent  his  greeting  could  never  be  his  wife. 

He  looked  at  me  as  if  he  did  not  understand. 

"•  Her  lips  have  promised  her  to  Palchi,"  he 
said  ;  "  her  heart  is  mine.  You  know  it  as  well 
as  I." 

Then  I  told  him  that  the  heart  might  not  go 
without  sin  where  the  lips  had  promised  that  it 
should  not ;  and  that  I  would  be  the  go-between 
of  no  unrighteous  love.  Interrupting  me,  he 
burst  out  in  a  storm  of  passion,  swearing  that 
I  was  no  true  friend.  And  when  he  saw  that  I 
could  not  be  moved,  he  stamped  his  foot,  and 
uttered  wild  curses,  and  turned  and  fled  away 
and  left  me. 

So  all  these  things  that  I  have  let  myself  love 
are  false.  The  beauty  of  this  Italy  whose  heart 
is  here  by  the  yellow  Tiber  —  the  beauty  that 
filled  me  with  a  great  happiness  when  first  it 
glowed  before  me  at  the  foot  of  the  cold  Alps 
—  is  a  devil's  beauty.  It  covers  things  hideous, 


142  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

unspeakable.  The  joy  it  brings  is  like  the  joy 
that  lurks  in  the  wine-cup.  It  is  charged  with 
evil;  and  when  we  have  drunk  our  fill,  there 
comes  a  great  loathing  of  what  we  have  done. 
To-night  I  would  shake  the  dust  of  Rome  from 
my  feet,  and  fly  to  some  land  where  I  may 
breathe  pure  air.  But  it  may  not  be.  The 
voice  within  me  whose  warnings  I  may  not  set 
aside  tells  me  that  here,  in  the  midst  of  guile, 
I  must  linger  on  until  I  know  at  last  why  I  am 
come  hither,  whither  my  footsteps  must  take 
their  way.  So  I  linger  still,  sick  at  heart,  wait 
ing  for  the  light  that  shall  guide  me  on. 


And  now  I  shall  break  away  from  Beverly 
for  a  while,  and  tell  a  part  of  the  story  in  my 
own  words  again. 


XI. 

T  N  the  midst  of  Rome  there  stands  an  old 
-*•  church,  not  large  and  not  so  fine  as  most 
of  those  that  have  famous  names.  But  the  low 
round  arches,  and  the  dim  mosaics  that  peer 
down  with  big  eyes  from  the  Tribune  in  the 
midst  of  which  Christ  blesses  the  people,  show 
that  it  belongs  to  the  oldest  of  Christian  days. 
Legend  says  that  it  was  built  to  keep  alive  the 
memory  of  a  Roman  virgin  who  suffered  martyr 
dom  on  the  spot  where  it  stands.  Emilia,  the 
legend  runs,  was  the  daughter  of  a  great  noble 
man  who  hated  the  Christians  as  bitterly  as  did 
the  emperor  himself.  Her  father  bade  her  marry 
an  officer  of  the  court,  famous  for  the  cruelty 
with  which  he  hunted  down  those  of  the  new 
faith ;  and  preparations  were  making  for  a  grand 
wedding.  But  a  Christian  slave  who  was  in 
attendance  on  the  maiden  converted  her  to  the 


144  TJie  Duchess  Emilia. 

truth.  So  when  the  wedding-day  came  she 
would  be  the  bride  of  none  but  Christ.  In  a 
rage  her  father  struck  her  down  ;  and  folding 
her  hands,  and  muttering  a  last  prayer  for  him, 
she  died.  In  later  times,  when  the  Christians 
had  risen  above  persecution  and  ruled  the  city, 
the  holy  martyr  Emilia  appeared  in  a  vision  to 
a  priest ;  and  showing  him  the  spot  where  the 
house  had  stood  in  which  she  had  met  her  death, 
she  bade  him  build  a  church  there.  So  the 
church  was  built ;  and  then,  by  another  miracle, 
they  found  somewhere  in  the  Catacombs  the 
body  of  Santa  Emilia,  which  they  placed  with 
solemn  rejoicing  upon  the  high  altar  of  the 
church.  And  thither vfor  a  thousand  years  men 
have  come  to  worship. 

In  this  church  the  Colonnas  were  buried,  at 
first  simply  enough,  in  tombs  that  no  man  could 
envy  save  for  their  quietness.  But  by  and  by 
a  rich  member  of  the  house,  stirred  by  the  mag 
nificence  with  which  some  rival  families  decked 
their  burial-places,  built  beside  the  little  church 
a  grand  chapel  blazing  with  strange  marbles 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  145 

that  had  been  dug  up  among  the  ruins  of  pagan 
Rome.  In  this  chapel  the  Colonnas  lie  now, 
and  among  them  the  Duchess  Emilia. 

Elsewhere  than  in  Rome,  this  old  church  — 
sweet  with  the  incense  of  centuries,  and  splen 
did,  too,  since  the  door  that  leads  to  the  princely 
chapel  has  been  opened  in  its  gray  wall  —  would 
be  a  famous  spot.  But  in  Rome,  over-rich  with 
treasures  of  art  and  of  tradition,  it  stands  un 
noticed.  Indeed,  when  I  went  to  Rome,  years 
after  Beverly  was  dead  and  forgotten,  I  had 
much  work  to  find  it.  The  local  guides  and  the 
grand  porter  of  my  hotel  had  never  heard  its 
name.  "  It  is  possible  that  there  is  such  a 
place,"  they  would  say ;  "  bub  who  cares  to  go 
there?"  All  the  same  I  sought  it  out,  and 
found  there  many  a  quiet  thought  of  past  time. 
Such  thoughts  have  come  to  me  in  the  dead  old 
towns  of  New  England,  whose  wooden  mansions 
will  have  rotted  away  for  centuries  before  a 
stone  falls  from  the  mosaics  of  Santa  Emilia. 
The  world  has  passed  it  by.  None  but  the 
Colonnas  remember  it,  if  indeed  there  are  still 
10 


146  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Colormas  in  Rome.  For  I  put  no  questions  to 
the  snuffy  custode  who  unlocked  for  me  the  iron 
gate  of  their  chapel ;  I  only  passed  within  it, 
and  stood  among  the  marbles  whose  splendor 
seemed  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  the  so 
lemnity  of  death.  We  of  New  England  think 
of  the  dead  in  quiet  church-yards,  where  gray 
stone  slabs,  half  overgrown  with  moss,  stand 
amid  the  long  grass.  There  rude  rhymes  sing 
their  dirges  in  quaintly  simple  tones  that  lose 
themselves  in  the  low  harmonies  of  the  wind 
which  plays  through  the  slow-moving  branches 
of  elms  and  pines.  In  Rome  the  spirit  of  the 
old  pagans  is  not  dead.  As  they  strove  to  make 
bright  the  homes  of  their  departed  with  dancing 
sprites  and  merry  colors,  so  the  Romans  even  in 
our  own  time  deck  their  graves  with  such  splen 
dors  as  they  love  in  life. 

In  the  Colonna  chapel  there  is  a  monument 
made  by  some  follower  of  Canova,  and  on  it 
is  the  name  of  the  Duchess  Emilia.  I  stood 
before  it,  thinking  of  the  time  —  not  far  off  in 
years,  yet  so  far  in  all  things  else  —  when 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  147 

Richard  Beverly  had  found  his  way  there  too. 
For  there  Beverly  came,  by  mere  chance  ;  and 
there  at  last  was  revealed  to  him  what  he  be 
lieved  with  all  his  heart  to  be  the  secret  of  his 
life. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  time  of  which  he 
wrote  in  the  last  lines  I  have  copied  from  his 
journal.  Cut  off  by  what  seemed  a  cruel  fate 
rather  than  any  fault  of  his  from  all  the  friends 
who  were  near  him, — from  the  Clevelands, 
from  the  old  Cardinal  Colonna,  from  the  Count 
Luigi,  from  Filippa,  whom  he  still  calls  Filippa 
in  his  writing,  —  he  wandered  about  the  city, 
seeking  distraction  from  himself.  His  journal 
contains  many  notes,  such  as  all  travellers  make, 
of  sights  that  have  been  written  of  a  thousand 
times  and  will  be  written  of  as  long  as  Rome 
lasts.  At  length,  he  found  himself  one  day 
before  the  little  church  of  Santa  Emilia,  and 
entered  to  see  what  might  be  within.  There  he 
found  just  such  an  old  custode  as  met  me  there 
years  afterwards,  —  perhaps  the  same,  for  the 
man  I  saw  looked  old  enough  to  have  been  there 


148  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

since  the  days  of  the  blessed  Emilia  herself. 
And  this  old  creature  told  him,  in  a  cracked 
voice  that  he  noted  in  his  journal,  the  simple 
story  of  the  saint ;  and  showed  him  the  shrine 
that  holds  her  bones.  So  he  stood  before  the 
shrine,  studded  with  jewels  which  look  very 
like  bits  of  polished  glass,  and  thought  of  what 
her  life  had  been  who  lies  on  earth,  as  she  sits 
in  Heaven,  in  glory.  Nothing  could  be  simpler 
or  slighter.  A  young  girl,  faithful  to  the  God 
whom  she  had  learned  to  worship,  would  not 
swerve  from  what  she  thought  He.  bade  her  do. 
Pure  He  had  made  her ;  pure  she  would  give 
herself  back  to  Him.  So  she  died,  and  might 
have  been  forgotten,  but  that  the  Roman  Chris 
tians  have  never  suffered  simple  purity  to  die. 
What  good  has  come  within  their  ken  they  have 
gathered  up  and  treasured.  They  have  decked 
it,  perhaps,  in  such  feeble  poetry  as  is  made 
only  in  monkish  minds  ;  they  have  shrined  its 
relics  in  cases  that  make  sane  men  smile.  But 
all  the  same  they  have  treasured  it.  The  church 
that  has  bred  all  the  subtleties  of  Roman  priest- 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  149 

craft  is  the  church  that  has  kept  alive  the 
memory  of  the  saints  and  the  martyrs  who  gave 
themselves  with  all  their  hearts  to  what  they 
deemed  was  the  truth. 

Some  such  thoughts  came  to  Beverly,  as  he 
stood  before  the  shrine  of  the  Roman  girl  who 
has  outlived  the  great  world  that  did  her  to 
death.  But  he  was  not  suffered  to  think  of 
her  long.  The  old  custode,  hungry  for  another 
fee,  dragged  him  off  to  the  chapel,  —  more 
beautiful,  the  custode  said,  than  Paradise  itself, 
—  which  was  the  glory  of  this  old  church ; 
and  unlocked  the  iron  gate,  which  creaked  on 
its  hinges,  and  forced  him  to  enter.  What  he 
found  there  he  shall  tell  in  his  own  words. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

As  I  stepped  within  the  chapel  there  came 
to  me  more  strongly  than  ever  the  feeling  that 
I  was  moving  through  a  world  where  I  had 
been  before.  And  this  old  feeling  came  in  a 
form  which  I  had  not  yet  known.  Before,  it 
had  been  as  if  I  was  come  back  from  afar  off 


150  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

to  spots  full  of  evil  memories  too  vague  and  dis 
tant  for  me  to  know  what  they  were.  Here  at 
last  it  was  as  if  I  was  come  face  to  face  with 
the  evil  thing  that  has  chased  me  through  my 
life.  I  half  thought  that  some  shadowy  form 
would  stalk  before  me,  and  whisper  in  my  ear 
words  that  should  bear  their  meaning  to  my 
heart.  But  nothing  came ;  and  I  smiled  at 
my  folly  as  I  looked  about  me  at  the  marble 
splendors  which  the  cracked-voiced  verger 
pointed  out. 

Where  I  was  I  did  not  know  ;  I  had  not 
stopped  to  ask.  Whose  tombs  I  looked  at  I 
hardly  cared.  I  would  have  turned  back  and 
left  the  spot,  trusting  that  the  evil  thoughts 
which  came  to  me  there  were  only  the  delusions 
of  a  troubled  mind.  In  truth,  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  did  turn  back,  bidding  my  old  guide 
show  me  no  more.  But  of  that  I  know  little ; 
for,  as  I  turned,  my  eyes  fell  upon  a  thing  that 
in  my  earthly  life  I  had  never  seen  before. 
And  then,  for  a  long  time,  I  saw  and  knew 
nothing  of  what  was  done  about  me.  But  I 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  151 

saw  and  knew  instead  the  things  for  which  I 
had  strained  my  mind  so  long. 

For  there  before  me  on  a  sculptured  tomb 
was  the  name  that  had  echoed  through  my 
brain  when  Cleveland  spoke  it,  the  name  that 
the  old  Cardinal  had  bidden  me  never  speak 
to  him,  —  Emilia  Colonna.  I  saw  no  other  word 
save  the  date  when  she  died.  It  was  my  birth- 
year.  That  I  had  known.  But  as  I  looked 
upon  the  letters  I  read  more,  which  had  never 
been  told  me.  It  was  on  the  very  day  when 
I  was  born  in  far-off  New  England  that  Emilia 
Colonna  came  to  her  end  in  Rome.  Her  life 
went  out  of  the  world  as  mine  came  into  it. 
A  simple  fact  enough,  men  might  say ;  but  to 
me  it  had  a  meaning  that  unlocked  the  riddle 
of  my  life.  Not  all  at  once  did  the  truth 
come  to  me,  but  all  at  once  I  knew  that  it 
was  coming ;  and  I  stood  leaning  against  the 
sculptured  marble,  my  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
formal  words,  as  the  truth  that  I  had  sought 
came  shining  through  the  murky  clouds  of  mys 
tery  that  have  writhed  about  me  so  long.  It 


152  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

shone  through  at  last,  as  the  sun  shines  through 
a  mountain  mist,  —  first  faint  and  dim,  then 
more  and  more  distinct,  at  last  in  all  the  clear 
ness  of  heaven.  But  the  truth  that  came  to 
me  had  little  of  heaven  in  it. 

For  at  first  there  swept  over  me  memories 
of  her  sinful  life  whose  bones  lay  within  the 
marble  tomb.  I  thought  of  her  loveless  mar 
riage,  of  her  unhallowed  love.  I  thought  of 
how  Duke  Pietro,  whose  tomb  was  by  hers,  had 
fallen  murdered  before  her  tearless  eyes ;  of 
how,  while  he  lay  dead,  she  had  sat  in  her  pal 
ace  waiting  for  the  lover  who  had  dishonored 
the  dead  man's  name.  I  thought  of  how  from 
that  day  on  no  touch  of  penitence  had  come  to 
her  proud  spirit;  of  how  she  had  sunk  deep  in 
all  the  sins  of  the  flesh,  smiling,  with  the  lips 
I  had  known  for  mine  in  the  painted  face  she 
left  behind  her,  on  every  lover  who  pressed 
his  suit.  And  then  at  last  she  had  died  in  the 
midst  of  her  sin ;  and  they  had  brought  her 
hither  and  laid  her  beside  her  honest  lord,  to 
sleep  in  peace. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  153 

Here  she  had  been,  in  her  marble  bed,  since 
the  day  when  I  first  drew  breath  in  this  world. 
That  was  strange,  —  that  I,  whose  simple  life 
was  not  begun  until  her  stormy  life  was  ended, 
should  be  standing  by  her  tomb,  telling  over 
the  tale  of  her  sins  as  a  monk  might  tell  the 
beads  of  his  rosary.  Nay,  I  was  telling  them 
as  if  they  had  been  part  of  my  own  life,  the 
life  that  was  not  yet  in  being  when  those  sins 
were  done.  For  with  each  thought  of  what 
her  sins  had  been  there  came  to  me  a  fresh 
pang.  I  shrunk  from  them,  as  I  would  have 
shrunk  if  I  had  done  them  in  my  own  flesh. 
Yet  from  them  I  could  not  shrink  away,  even 
as  I  could  never  shrink  away  from  myself. 

What  all  meant  I  could  not  tell ;  but  I  saw 
that  the  truth  was  at  hand.  I  fell  upon  my 
knees,  crying  out  to  Heaven  in  my  own  tongue 
that  I  might  be  kept  in  •  the  dark  no  longer. 
Vile  as  I  was,  let  me  see  the  light,  and  I  would 
struggle  toward  it  with  all  the  might  that  was 
in  me. 

Then  my  eyes  were  cleared  once  more.     It 


154  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

was  as  if  some  hand  had  swept  away  the  veil 
of  mystery  which  had  hidden  from  me  the  place 
in  which  I  stood  ;  for  in  my  misery  I  had  ceased 
to  see,  to  hear,  to  feel.  And  when  I  knew  that 
my  eyes  could  see  once  more,  I  found  them  fixed 
upon  the  words  which  told  me  that  here  before 
me  lay  the  dead  woman,  who  died  on  the  day 
when  I  was  born. 

With  that  came  to  me  the  memory  of  an  old 
tale  that  my  nurse  told  me  when  I  was  a  little 
child.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  a  stormy  night 
that  I  came  into  the  world.  When  I  was  born 
I  was  still  and  lifeless,  and  they  said  that 
there  was  no  earthly  life  for  me,  that  I  was 
dead  in  the  womb.  But  of  a  sudden,  as  the 
clocks  were  tolling  the  hour  of  midnight,  I 
quivered  and  uttered  a  great  cry,  louder  and 
wilder  than  the  cries  of  other  children.  And 
I  drew  breath  with  a  struggle,  as  if  I  would 
fain  lie  still  but  could  not ;  and  cried  again 
with  a  voice  of  fear  that  made  the  women 
start.  Then  I  lived;  and  living  I  was  come 
back  here  at  last. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  155 

For  from  hence  I  was  come.  The  mystery 
was  clear  to  me  now.  The  life  that  has  filled 
my  waking  hours  with  agony  was  come  from 
hence.  The  spirit  that  brought  life  to  the  baby 
form  that  might  have  lain  at  peace  among  my 
fathers  was  no  blessed  sprite  from  Heaven.  But 
in  the  stormy  midnight  the  soul  that  had  been 
Emilia's  was  whirled  about  the  rolling  earth ; 
and  coming  to  my  far-off  fatherland  it  found  a 
wretched  home  in  the  madman's  body  that  is 
mine.  Saved  for  a  time  by  what  blessed  power 
no  man  can  tell  from  the  fires  of  Hell,  it  lingers 
on  in  this  earth  with  one  more  chance  to  expiate 
its  sin. 

All  the  mystery  that  I  have  found  in  Rome 
was  cleared.  All  the  agony  that  I  have  suffered 
was  real  and  true,  a  thousand-fold  more  than  I 
had  dreamed.  I  knelt,  and  prayed  with  all  my 
heart  for  light  and  for  mercy.  And  as  I  raised 
my  living  hands  to  God,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  dead  hands  which  had  been  mine  raised 
themselves  too  within  the  tomb.  Then  presently 
I  knew  no  more. 


156  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

When  my  life  came  back  to  me,  I  was  lying 
in  the  sacristy  of  the  old  church  ;  and  they  were 
bathing  my  temples  with  cool  water.  Before 
long  I  raised  myself  up,  stronger  and  calmer 
than  I  had  been  in  the  time  gone  by.  And  I 
gave  them  money,  and  came  my  way  hither  to 
my  chamber  in  the  old  palace. 

Here  I  wait  to-night,  full  of  agony  deeper 
than  I  knew  of  old,  for  now  the  sins  for  which 
I  suffer  are  as  clear  to  me  as  they  are  to  the 
Heaven  by  whose  justice  the  suffering  has  fol 
lowed  them.  But  I  am  full  of  hope,  too,  that 
the  mercy  which  has  saved  me  to  this  time  will 
not  forsake  me  now ;  that  it  will  lead  me  on 
through  agonies  of  expiation  as  great  as  souls 
can  bear,  until  at  last  the  sin  is  washed  away. 
Then  shall  come  rest,  rest  such  as  God  alone 
can  grant. 


XII. 

OO  this  was  the  secret  which  Beverly  had 
^  been  seeking  so  long.  It  seems  a  mad 
thought;  no  doubt  it  was.  My  friends  will 
look  at  me  askance  and  whisper  predictions  of 
a  time  when  I  shall  be  locked  up  at  Somerville 
if  I  venture  to  breathe  that  there  are  moments 
when  I  see  in  it  something  besides  madness. 
But,  mad  or  not,  this  thought,  which  to  Beverly 
was  the  deepest  he  ever  knew,  struck  a  note 
that  brought  into  harmony  all  the  restless 
discords  of  his  life.  And  in  that  harmony,  fan 
tastic  as  it  is,  I  have  grown  to  find  a  beauty 
that  is  not  quite  of  this  world.  So  it  seemed  to 
Beverly  when  his  last  hour  came.  So,  when 
the  end  was  come,  it  seemed  to  the  old  Cardinal 
Colonna.  And  we  three  are  all  that  have  pon 
dered  on  the  story  until  it  has  become  part  of 
our  lives. 


158  TJie  Duchess  Emilia. 

From  the  time  when  Beverly  saw  the  church 
of  Santa  Emilia,  his  life  moved  swiftly  and  surely 
to  its  end.  Day  after  day  he  lived  on,  waiting 
for  the  revelation  of  his  duty.  Day  after  day 
he  went  from  the  quiet  rooms  where  now  he 
lived  all  alone  to  the  little  church  ;  and  there, 
flinging  a  piece  of  silver  to  the  old  custode,  he 
passed  into  the  chapel  of  the  Colonnas,  and 
knelt  by  the  tomb  that  held  Emilia  Colonna's 
bones,  and  prayed.  Again  and  again  he  told 
over  in  his  mind  the  story  of  her  sins.  More 
and  more  he  grew  to  feel  that  those  sins  were 
upon  his  soul,  that  all  the  misery  which  he  had 
suffered,  he  had  not  known  why,  was  mercy 
by  the  side  of  what  those  sins  deserved.  And 
though  the  suffering  that  he  felt  now  was  keener 
than  the  vague  pangs  he  had  felt  before,  it 
troubled  him  less,  for  now  he  knew  what  it 
meant  and  why  it  came. 

"  There  is  one  thought,"  he  writes,  "  which 
gives  me  comfort.  In  all  the  life  that  I  have 
lived  since  I  have  been  the  being  that  I  am 
to-day,  I  have  done  with  all  my  heart  what  I 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  159 

thought  was  right.  I  have  idled,  perhaps ;  I 
have  not  looked  about  me.  But  when  tempta 
tions  have  come,  I  have  struggled  against  them  ; 
when  a  duty  has  lain  before  me,  I  have  striven 
to  do  it.  So  with  God's  help  I  will  persist." 

One  day,  when  he  came  near  the  church,  he 
found  the  streets  astir  ;  and  asking  of  some  one 
in  the  crowd  why  they  had  gathered,  was  told 
that  this  was  the  festival  of  Santa  Emilia.  There 
was  a  grand  service  in  the  little  church  ;  there 
was  to  be  a  procession  through  the  streets  of 
the  parish  ;  and  so  many  dark-eyed  Romans 
were  come  together  to  see  the  solemnities  that 
he  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  make  his  way  to 
a  spot  whence  the  rough  brick  wall  of  the  church 
was  in  sight.  The  rest  of  what  happened  this 
day  he  shall  tell  for  himself:  — 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

So  great  was  the  crowd  gathered  at  the  church 

door  that  I  gave  up  all  thought  of  entering,  and 

stood  among  them  waiting  to  see  what  might 

come.     Through  the  open  doors,  whence  came 


160  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

the  sound  of  organ  music,  I  could  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  altar,  sparkling  with  great  candles  and 
with  colored  lamps,  which  shone  amid  clouds  of 
incense-smoke  as  stars  shine  through  evening 
mists.  Before  long  the  organ  music  ceased,  and 
there  was  a  little  lull,  so  that  I  could  hear  the 
people  talking  of  the  sight  that  was  coming. 
Then,  of  a  sudden,  when  I  was  not  prepared  for 
it,  came  a  burst  of  song  from  the  church,  as  if 
the  whole  company  within  were  one  great  choir. 
The  crowd  about  the  doors  parted  ;  some  fell  on 
their  knees  ;  and  the  procession  came  forth  sing 
ing  a  glorious  hymn.  First  in  the  hymn  came 
a  song  of  solemn  triumph,  and  in  this  all  the 
voices  joined.  Then  came  a  passage  which  the 
choir  boys  sang  cheerily,  as  if  their  hearts  were 
glad ;  the  music  was  sweet  and  simple,  and 
flowed  as  if  it  were  not  studied,  but  came  of 
itself  to  the  singers.  Then  came  again  the  great 
chorus  of  triumph.  So  the  procession  passed 
out  of  the  church,  with  a  cross  at  its  head,  and 
made  its  way  through  the  crowded  streets. 
There  were  priests  in  robes  of  many  kinds, 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  161 

and  there  were  boys  who  sang  as  if  all  their  lives 
were  one  long  song,  and  others  who  swung 
censers,  from  which  the  smoke  curled  up  and 
filled  the  air  with  fragrance  ;  and  there  were 
great  crosses  and  banners,  and  finally  a  reli 
quary  in  which  lay  some  of  the  bones  that  they 
say  were  hers  in  whose  honor  all  these  things 
were  done.  So,  with  joyous  song,  this  holy 
company  made  their  way  among  the  people. 
And  the  people  watched  them  happily,  thinking 
of  the  girl  whose  pure  life  ended  here  in  pain 
and  sorrow  near  two  thousand  years  ago.  She 
was  true  to  her  God.  Undefiled  He  made  her  ; 
undefiled  she  gave  herself  to  Him.  That  faith 
ful  deed  is  deemed  worthy  to  keep  her  memory 
alive  through  the  ages  ;  from  year  to  year  they 
sing  her  praises  in  such  grand  hymns  as  I  have 
heard  to-day.  So  through  all  time  the  people 
remember  her  who  gave  little  thought  to  her 
self,  and  they  bless  her  memory,  praying  that 
she  may  bring  her  purity  before  the  throne  of 
God,  to  beg  His  mercy  for  them ;  for  one  good 
life,  they  say,  is  more  grateful  to  Heaven  than 
11 


162  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

a  thousand  evil  ones  are  hateful,  —  such  is  the 
mercy  of  God. 

When  the  joyous  procession  was  past,  the 
crowd  was  less  dense.  So  I  made  my  way 
toward  the  church,  and  at  last  passed  up  the 
steps  and  within  the  doors.  There  the  light 
was  dim ;  so  I  stood  still  for  a  while  that  my 
eyes  might  grow  used  to  it ;  and  as  the  people 
were  pressing  about  me  I  stepped  aside  and  stood 
by  the  wall  close  to  the  door.  Near  me  was  a 
woman  whose  face  was  veiled.  When  she  saw 
me  she  drew  her  veil  closer,  as  if  she  thought 
that  I  would  look  at  her  rudely.  What  she  was 
like  I  could  not  tell ;  she  might  be  young  or 
old,  fair  or  ugly,  for  her  dress  was  very  plain 
and  her  veil  hid  her  face.  She  gave  only  one 
glance  to  me.  Then  she  looked  about  her,  as 
if  she  waited  for  some  one  who  did  not  come. 

As  the  crowd  surged  about  the  doorway, 
there  approached  her  a  fellow  in  the  dress  of 
the  people.  He  looked  like  any  other.  Until 
he  was  close  to  her  she  did  not  remark  him; 
but  when  he  was  at  her  side  he  spoke  in  a 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  163 

whisper  some  word  which  made  her  start.  I 
could  see  her  clasp  his  hand  and  hold  it  fast  as 
she  whispered  back.  It  was  he  for  whom  she 
had  been  waiting  here,  for  whom  she  had  turned 
this  feast  of  purity  into  a  masque  of  love.  And 
her  love,  I  thought,  could  be  no  true  one,  else 
why  should  it  hide  itself  behind  veils  and  dis 
guises  ?  For,  whoever  she  was,  she  was  no 
woman  of  the  people,  and  the  man  she  met 
could  not  be  the  peasant  that  he  seemed.  His 
face  was  turned  from  me.  I  could  see  only  his 
thick  black  hair,  and  his  bearded  cheek,  and 
the  passion  which  burst  through  all  his  efforts 
to  control  it,  as  he  spoke  to  her  who  was  come 
to  meet  him. 

It  was  strange.  There  was  about  this  man 
and  this  woman  something  that  I  had  known 
before,  —  not  in  the  mysterious  way  in  which  I 
have  known  the  Roman  things  that  in  my  present 
life  met  my  eyes  for  the  first  time,  but  firmly, 
really,  as  I  had  known  Cleveland,  and  the  old 
Cardinal  Colonna,  and  Filippa. 

Then  of  a  sudden  the  man  turned  his  face ; 


164  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

and  in  spite  of  his  beard  and  of  his  strange  dress 
I  knew  him  for  the  Count  Luigi.  And  then  I 
knew  that  the  woman  he  spoke  with  was  Filippa 
herself.  Yes,  here  — in  the  shadow  of  the  tomb 
of  Emilia  Colonna,  in  the  midst  of  the  music  that 
sang  the  praises  of  the  virgin  saint,  before  my 
eyes  who  drag  out  the  miserable  life  of  expia 
tion  that  I  call  mine  —  they  were  come  to  whis 
per  secret  vows,  to  begin  afresh  such  work  as 
wrought  the  agony  that  I  suffer  day  and  night. 
I  could  not  keep  myself  back.  I  laid  my  hand 
upon  their  clasped  hands  ;  and  as  they  looked 
at  me  in  anger  and  in  wonder  I  parted  them 
and  stood  between  them. 

"  Count  Luigi,"  I  said,  in  a  voice  so  low  that 
no  one  of  the  crowd  about  us  knew  that  I  spoke, 
"  this  is  no  good  deed.  Contessina,  come  with 
me." 

In  any  other  spot  he  would  have  struck  me 
down,  and  she  too  would  have  stabbed  me  with 
her  hands  as  she  did  now  with  the  marvellous 
eyes  that  flashed  between  the  folds  of  her 
veil.  But  here  and  now  the  danger  was  too 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  165 

great.  Even  here  he  turned  upon  me  ;  and 
putting  his  lips  close  to  my  ear  poured  out  a 
torrent  of  evil  words,  calling  down  upon  me  all 
the  miseries  that  his  fancy  could  conjure  up,  as 
if  my  misery  were  not  already  beyond  thought 
of  men. 

"Go,"  I  said  to  him,  "or  I  will  call  your 
name  and  give  you  up." 

"  Go,"  said  Filippa  then.  "  This  madman 
shall  do  me  no  harm ;  and  a  word  from  him 
may  destroy  you.  Go,  for  my  sake." 

"  Lowest  of  scoundrels  !  "  hissed  Luigi  in  my 
ear,  "you  shall  curse  this  day." 

"  With  God's  help,"  I  said,  "  I  will  make  you 
bless  it." 

Then  I  took  Filippa's  arm  and  drew  it  within 
my  own,  and  forced  her  to  move  with  me  into 
the  crowd  that  was  about  us.  There  the  Count 
Luigi  could  not  follow.  So  he  went  his  way,  I 
know  not  whither,  to  safety. 

Filippa's  hand  grasped  my  arm  as  if  she 
would  crush  it.  She  looked  at  me  as  her 
fingers  tightened. 


166  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

"  I  wish  it  were  your  black  heart,"  she  whis 
pered  ;  "  then  I  could  squeeze  it  to  death." 

"  Contessina,"  I  said  very  gently,  "  I  wish 
you  nothing  but  good.  Come  with  me  a  little 
way." 

"  Where  would  you  have  me  go  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  Do  you  think  that  I  will  follow  you  through 
eternity  ?  " 

"God  forbid!"  said  I,  and  I  felt  myself 
tremble  as  I  thought  what  her  words  might 
mean ;  it  was  to  save  her  from  that  very  fate 
that  I  dared  to  do  what  I  did  now.  "  I  shall 
lead  you  only  a  little  way.  Then  you  shall  go 
in  peace." 

I  led  her,  quivering  with  anger  and  with  fear 
lest  some  should  know  her,  or  I  should  do  some 
strange  thing,  through  the  festal  crowd  until 
we  came  to  the  gate  of  the  Colonna  chapel. 
The  gate  was  closed,  but  when  I  laid  my  hand 
upon  it  I  found  that  it  yielded  to  the  pressure. 
By  chance,  the  lock  was  not  fast. 

"  It  is  here  that  I  am  leading  you,"  I  said ; 
"  here  I  can  speak  to  }rou  best."  And  I  led 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  167 

her  within  ;  and  we  stood  together  among  the 
glowing  marbles  of  old  Rome,  before  Emilia 
Colonna's  tomb. 

As  I  looked  toward  the  tomb  I  saw  with 
wonder  that  one  was  there  before  us,  but  so 
lost  in  thought  that  he  did  not  heed  our  coming. 
Alone  before  the  sculptured  tomb,  gazing  upon 
the  lines  that  told  who  lay  within  it,  stood 
a  black-robed  priest.  His  rusty  dress  seemed 
to  show  his  poverty ;  but  in  spite  of  his  garb 
and  of  his  loneliness  I  knew  him  for  one  whom 
I  had  never  thought  to  see  save  in  the  grandeur 
of  the  state  that  was  truly  his.  For  it  was  the 
Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna,  come  in  secret  on  the 
feast  of  her  who  had  been  dearest  to  him  of 
human  things,  to  watch  before  the  tomb  that 
held  within  it  her  bones,  to  pray  perhaps  that 
the  soul  which  had  been  hers  might  find  mercy 
in  the  sight  of  God,  to  whose  service  he  had 
given  his  life. 

As  I  looked  on  him  there  came  to  me  feelings 
that  were  new  and  old  at  once.  I  thought  how 
in  the  far-off  time,  when  his  step  had  been  firm 


168  The  Ductiess  Emilia. 

and  his  eye  full  of  the  fire  of  youth,  he  had 
whispered  the  passion  of  his  heart  to  Emilia 
Colonna ;  how  he  had  clasped  her  hands  in  his, 
and  pressed  her  to  his  bosom  with  warm  kisses. 
And  as  I  thought  of  that  love,  treacherous  in 
the  sight  of  God  and  men,  }Tet  loyal  in  itself, 
constant,  in  spite  of  fastings  and  of  prayers, 
through  the  long  years  that  stretched  on  be 
tween  the  days  when  it  was  young  and  the 
time  when  he  too  should  lay  himself  to  rest 
among  these  Roman  marbles,  I  felt  my  heart 
swell  with  answering  love,  strong  and  deep  as 
a  woman  might  give  her  lover.  For  a  moment 
this  was  all  that  I  felt ;  I  would  have  stepped  for 
ward  and  spoken  it  out,  had  not  the  girl  I  had 
brought  thither  called  me  back  to  what  I  am. 

"  Why  have  you  brought  me  here  ? "  she 
asked,  in  no  steady  voice,  for  the  solemnity  of 
the  place  had  touched  her  with  fear. 

I  pointed  to  the  tomb  of  Emilia  Colonna. 

"  To  save  you,"  I  said,  "from  such  a  fate  as 
hers.  To  save  your  spirit  from  the  agony  of 
a  sin  that  may  never  be  undone.  To  help  you, 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  169 

with  God's  help,  so  to  live  your  earthly  life  that 
when  the  end  shall  come  you  may  rest  in  His 
peace.  Remember  her.  Remember  me,  too. 
Perhaps  the  time  may  come  when  your  prayers 
shall  help  to  win  me  mercy." 

With  that  I  motioned  her  away ;  and  with 
wondering  eyes  she  went,  moved  deeply  by  the 
strangeness  of  what  I  said.  So  I  was  left  alone 
with  Giulio  Colonna,  who  knew  not  yet  that 
any  one  was  near  him. 

He  stood  still,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  marble 
tomb  of  Emilia,  his  lips  moving  as  if  in  prayer. 
"Was  his  thought,  I  wondered,  there  in  the 
chapel  of  his  fathers?  Or  did  it  wander  into 
the  future,  where  his  old  life  must  soon  merge 
in  the  mysteries  that  lie  beyond  the  grave  ?  Or 
did  he  think  of  her  from  whom  he  had  parted 
in  the  olden  time,  and  wonder  where  the  life  that 
had  been  hers  dragged  out  the  agony  that  jus 
tice  should  have  meted  it  for  all  the  eternities? 
Or  perchance  did  his  thoughts  wander  back 
to  that  olden  time,  when  in  blissful  sin  those 
charms  were  his  which  now  lay  mouldering? 


170  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

What  love  had  been  his  for  the  woman  whom 
human  law  and  law  divine  had  bidden  him  look 
at  with  no  loving  eyes  !  What  love  had  been 
hers  for  him,  in  all  the  beauty  of  the  youth  that 
he  had  given  her,  in  spite  of  earth  and  Heaven  ! 
Even  now  it  seemed  that,  purged  of  earthiness, 
I  felt  that  love  still.  The  agonies  that  had 
been  mine  were  not  mine  alone.  Parted  from 
me  by  half  a  world  arid  by  all  the  mystery  of 
the  being  that  I  call  mine,  Giulio  Colonna  had 
felt  them  too,  had  shared  them,  not  knowing 
that  they  were  shared.  The  thought  made  them 
lighter.  In  sorrow  there  is  ever  a  sad  joy  in 
knowing  that  others  know  the  sorrow  that 
bows  us  clown. 

"  Giulio  !  "  I  found  myself  murmuring  of  him 
whom  in  this  life  I  have  known  only  as  the 
prince  of  a  church  that  is  not  mine.  Yes,  to 
me  as  I  stood  there  he  was  Giulio  still,  —  the 
dark-eyed  boy  who  loved  me  in  old  Rome. 

"  Giulio  !  "  I  murmured  again. 

He  heard  me.  He  started,  as  if  my  voice  had 
come  from  the  tomb.  Quickly,  as  if  he  were 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  171 

still  young,  his  hand  made  the  sign  of  the  cross. 
He  turned  about,  his  face  full  of  amazement. 
He  thought,  I  believe,  to  see  before  him  some 
being  of  another  world. 

"In  God's  name,  who  speaks  to  me?"  lie 
cried  aloud. 

But  when  he  saw  me  he  knew  me  only  for 
the  man  whom  he  had  driven  from  his  presence. 
His  face  grew  stern  with  displeasure ;  he  strove 
to  speak  with  a  firm  voice,  to  stand  with  a  firm 
footing. 

"  You  have  no  right  here,  rude  fellow,"  he 
said ;  but  as  he  spoke  his  voice  faltered,  and 
he  trembled  and  would  have  fallen. 

Then  I  reached  out  my  arms  and  held  him 
up,  and  looked  at  the  old  face  that  knew  not 
that  I  had  known  it  when  it  was  not  old.  And 
in  his  weakness,  half-wondering,  half-angry,  he 
could  not  but  lean  upon  me.  So  for  a  moment 
I  clasped  him  in  my  arms. 

Then,  when  I  might  have  spoken  out  the 
secret  of  which  my  heart  was  full,  there  came  to 
my  ears  the  swelling  sound  of  the  hymn  that 


172  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

the  people  were  singing  in  honor  of  the  virgin 
saint.  And  I  remembered  in  whose  temple  we 
stood  ;  and  with  that  memory  came  the  thought 
of  what  manner  of  life  had  been  hers  who  bore 
in  later  time  the  virgin  Emilia's  name.  I  shrank 
away  from  the  man  who  had  soiled  her  life 
when  still  it  was  pure.  Yet  I  could  not  fling 
him  from  me.  So,  very  gently  I  laid  him  down 
upon  the  marble  steps  of  the  altar  that  stood 
in  the  chapel.  And  he  sat  trembling,  looking 
at  me  in  wonder. 

So  I  left  him,  alone  in  the  chapel  of  his 
fathers.  And  as  I  passed  out  into  the  church, 
I  found  the  people  rejoicing  once  more ;  and 
through  the  entrance  doors  came  to  meet  me 
the  crosses  and  the  banners  and  the  smoking 
censers  of  the  company  that  had  sung  through 
the  streets  of  Rome  hosannas  to  the  virgin 
saint. 


XIII. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

\  T  7HEN  the  Cardinal  Colonna  bade  me  come 
*  *  to  him  again  I  could  not  choose  but  go  ; 
for  perhaps  through  him,  in  some  way  that  I 
could  not  foresee,  might  come  the  revelation  of 
my  duty,  whose  doing  shall  win  me  a  right  to 
rest.  So  I  followed  the  servant  who  summoned 
me,  thinking  to  go  straight  to  the  Cardinal 
Colonna's  presence.  But  when  I  came  to  the 
chamber  through  which  I  must  pass  to  the  room 
where  I  was  used  to  find  him  they  told  me  that 
I  must  wait.  His  Eminence  was  not  alone,  and 
must  not  be  disturbed  until  those  who  were 
with  him  had  finished  their  business. 

So  I  was  left  to  myself,  my  mind  full  of  the 
days  when  Emilia  Colonna  lived  in  these  very 
places,  when  her  eyes  gazed  upon  these  painted 
ceilings,  and  these  carven  chairs,  and  these  dim 


174  The  Duchess  .Emilia. 

tapestries.  Here,  perhaps,  when  her  heart  was 
hot  with  love,  she  had  waited  for  the  lover  who 
sat  within  to-day.  Here,  perhaps,  she  had  given 
back  his  kisses  and  his  love.  Here  had  that 
dishonor  been  wrought  which  with  every  breath 
I  expiate  in  my  living  life.  Full  of  such 
thoughts  I  stood  alone. 

How  long  I  waited  I  cannot  tell.  A  hand 
was  laid  upon  my  shoulder,  and  aroused  me  to 
myself.  I  turned  about  and  knew  that  it  was 
Filippa,  who  had  glided  in  unheard.  Her  face 
was  full  of  such  wrath  as  might  have  flashed 
from  the  faces  of  the  old  goddesses  of  the 
pagans.  Never  had  I  so  seen  the  full  splendor 
of  her  face  and  her  form.  She  moved  toward 
me  noiselessly,  but  it  was  with  no  petty  cunning 
that  she  governed  her  motion ;  her  stealthy 
step  had  the  grandeur  of  a  lion's  as  she  came 
close  to  me,  and  spoke  in  low  tones  fiercer  than 
loud  threats. 

She  knew  why  I  was  come,  she  said.  It  was 
to  tell  her  kinsfolk  tales  of  where  I  had  found 
her.  Well,  I  might  speak  them  out  if  I  would. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  175 

She  would  swear  that  they  were  lies,  and  that  I 
told  them  because  I  had  insolently  dared  whisper 
words  of  love  to  her,  and  she  had  scorned  me. 

"  Which  will  be  believed?  "  she  asked,  — 
"  you,  a  stranger  from  God  knows  where,  or  I, 
a  Roman  lady  ?  Speak  if  you  will." 

So  she  stood  for  a  moment,  in  all  the  splendor 
of  her  beauty.  But  that  beauty,  which  when 
I  saw  it  first  filled  me  with  such  delight  as  the 
Grecian  artist  felt  when  at  his  prayer  the  mar 
ble  was  turned  to  flesh,  filled  me  now  with 
loathing.  For  it  seemed  the  incarnate  beauty 
of  this  Old  World,  that  for  ages  has  led  men  on 
to  such  nameless  fates  as  that  which  I  suffer. 
I  shrank  away  from  her,  with  some  movement 
as  if  I  would  thrust  her  aside.  What  was  she 
to  me?  I  had  warned  her  of  what  might  come. 
She  had  scorned  my  warning.  Let  her  glide  on 
to  her  fate. 

But  of  a  sudden,  when  she  saw  that  I  was 
not  moved,  her  whole  face  changed ;  her  lip 
trembled ;  her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  She 
snatched  my  hand,  and  held  it  fast.  In  God's 


176  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

name,  she  begged  me,  forgive  her  for  speaking 
as  in  her  folly  she  had  spoken.  In  God's  name, 
have  pity.  A  word  from  me  might  set  them  on 
Luigi's  track,  might  drag  him  to  the  prison  that 
meant  a  living  death.  Be  silent,  she  prayed 
me,  for  his  sake,  not  for  hers. 

"  For  I  love  him,"  she  sobbed,  "  I  love  him 
with  all  my  soul." 

I  looked  on  her  in  wonder.  My  heart  soft 
ened  ;  for  I  saw  that  even  as  her  threats  were 
falsehood,  her  tears  and  her  love  were  truth. 
I  laid  my  hand  upon  her  dark  hair,  for  she 
had  bent  down  before  me  as  she  clasped  my 
hand. 

"  My  poor  child,"  I  said,  "  if  you  love  him, 
why  do  you  give  yourself  to  the  other  ?  " 

She  looked  up  piteously.  How  could  she 
help  it?  she  asked.  A  girl  must  do  as  her 
kinsfolk  bid.  But  all  the  kin  in  all  the  earth 
cannot  bind  the  heart. 

Then,  before  I  could  answer  her,  there  was  a 
sound  of  people  coming ;  and  in  an  instant  she 
had  left  me,  and  vanished  like  a  dream. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  177 

In  another  moment  there  came  from  the  room 
where  the  Cardinal  Colonna  sat,  a  company  of 
priests,  talking  in  low  tones  among  themselves 
of  what  matters  I  could  not  tell.  But  more 
than  once  I  heard  them  speak  the  name  of  the 
Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna,  and  the  name  of  the 
Pope.  .  With  them  was  the  Florentine  Dei 
Bardi,  his  thin  visage  full  of  eagerness  as  he 
spoke  to  one  with  a  great  golden  cross,  who 
seemed  the  chief  of  the  party.  With  no  look 
at  me,  who  stood  aside,  they  passed  by.  And 
as  I  looked  at  them  I  thought  how  strangely 
different  was  this  busy  company  of  churchly 
statesmen  from  the  boyish  singers  who  in  the 
garb  of  the  same  Church  had  chanted  through 
Rome  the  praises  of  the  martyred  saint ;  how 
different,  too,  from  the  saint  who  had  given  her 
all  for  Christ  when  Christ  and  His  Church  were 
poor. 

When  these  figures  had  passed,  I  was  free  to 
enter  the  room  of  the  Cardinal  Colonna.  So  I 
passed  within,  and  found  him  alone. 

He  sat  in   the  great  carven   chair  where  I 

12 


178  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

had  seen  him  in  the  days  of  our  friendship.  He 
rested  his  head  on  his  hand.  And  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  never  seen  living  man  look 
so  old  and  feeble.  When  he  turned  his  face 
toward  me,  the  eyes,  which  I  had  been  used  to 
see  full  of  a  life  that  belied  the  weakness  of 
his  form,  were  dull  as  the  yellow  skin  of  his 
shrunken  face.  And  they  were  sunken  deep 
in  their  sockets,  and  dark  lines  were  about 
them  such  as  they  say  are  about  the  eyes  of 
the  dead. 

There  was  no  look  of  welcome  in  his  face. 
He  moved  one  hand  and  bade  me  sit.  Then  for 
a  while  he  looked  at  me  with  a  strange  sternness, 
passionless  yet  firm,  such  as  some  judge  might 
have  when  he  spoke  at  last  a  sentence,  with  a 
broken  heart. 

"I  have  sent  for  you  to-day,"  he  said,  "be 
cause  there  is  no  other  way.  Since  you  crossed 
my  path  I  have  known  no  rest.  I  have  prayed 
for  it.  I  have  spoken  my  secrets  in  the  ear  of 
the  Church ;  but  the  sacrament  itself  has  not 
brought  me  peace.  The  olden  time  with  all  its 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  179 

sins  is  about  me  still.  It  is  you  who  have 
brought  it  back,  even  in  the  very  chapel  where 
my  bones  shall  lie.  What  you  are,  man  or  devil, 
I  cannot  tell ;  but  I  have  grown  to  know  that 
until  I  speak  out  to  you  the  secrets  that  you 
have  called  back  into  life,  they  will  haunt  me 
still.  So  I  shall  speak  them  out.  Then  at  last 
I  may  give  my  mind  to  those  things  which  alone 
must  fill  it  now." 

Then  he  looked  with  his  dull  eyes,  not  at 
me  nor  at  anything  that  was  about  him.  But 
the  holiness  that  men  were  used  to  see  in  his 
face  was  gone.  As  he  looked  to-day,  Magda 
lene  might  have  looked  when  her  eyes  were* 
not  yet  raised  to  Heaven. 

I  spoke  no  word;  but  listened  as  with  slow 
accents  he  forced  himself  to  tell  me  the  tale 
of  Emilia  Colonna.  In  the  old  days,  he  said, 
when  he  was  a  thoughtless  boy,  his  solemn 
brother  had  brought  home  the  bride  whom  all 
men  saw  with  envy.  Then  at  first  he  himself 
had  been  full  of  pride  that  she  bore  his  name, 
and  had  thought  no  evil  as  he  grew  to  think 


180  The.  Duchess  Emilia. 

of  her  more  and  more.  But  at  last  one  day 
they  wandered  together  in  a  Roman  garden, 
which  from  times  long  past  has  been  the  pleas 
ure  ground  of  his  race.  There  they  spoke  of 
Italy,  —  the  Italy  that  Dante  dreamed  of,  the 
Italy  that  Macchiavelli  of  Florence  longed  for 
in  the  far-off  days  when  men  saw  no  hope  of 
its  coming.  And  sitting  together  on  a  great 
stone  bench,  among  the  flowers,  they  looked 
into  one  another's  eyes,  and  their  lips  met,  and 
they  knew  that  they  loved.  Then  while  slow- 
witted  Pietro  was  busy  in  the  service  of  the 
Church,  the  lovers  used  to  meet,  and  to  love, 
•and  to  talk  of  their  love  and  of  Italy.  So  they 
had  wandered  together  among  the  flowers  of 
the  garden  where  first  they  had  loved;  and 
life  to  them  had  been  full  of  sunshine  and  of 
beauty,  and  the  world  free  from  misery. 

The  story  was  the  story  which  had  filled  my 
mind  as  it  had  filled  his.  Each  word  awoke  to 
living  life  old  memories  that  even  as  they  lay 
half  dead  within  me  had  caused  me  such  agony 
as  I  had  deemed  that  man  could  hardly  bear. 


The  Duchess  Emilia,  181 

But  I  bade  myself  remember  that  if  this  tale 
brought  peace  to  him,  it  was  best  that  I  should 
listen,  and  bear  his  burdens  along  with  mine : 
such  suffering,  perchance,  was  part  of  the  duty 
I  was  born  to  do.  So  at  last  he  came  close  to 
the  time  when  Pietro  Colonna  met  his  end  ;  and 
I  began  to  feel  that  soon  I  might  go  and  bear 
away  the  load  of  misery  from  which  Giulio  had 
striven  to  free  his  soul.  But  of  a  sudden  I 
found  that  he  was  telling  things  that  I  had  not 
known  before. 

For  he  told  how  the  lovers  of  Italy,  to  whom 
he  had  given  all  his  confidence,  found  that  they 
were  pressed  too  hard  by  the  watchfulness  of 
Pietro.  In  secret  conclave  they  doomed  him 
to  die.  Then  Giulio's  heart  revolted.  There 
was  little  time ;  and  even  then  Emilia  waited 
for  him  in  a  spot  where  they  were  used  to  meet. 
Thither  he  came ;  and  when  he  saw  her  he 
clasped  her  fast  in  his  arms,  and  pressed  his  lips 
to  hers  once  more,  for  the  last  time.  Then  he 
told  her  how  the  end  of  their  joys  was  come. 
They  must  part ;  and  he  must  go  to  his  death. 


182  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

With  flashing  eyes  she  started  up,  swearing  that 
it  was  a  lie,  that  he  loved  her  no  more  ;  and  chose 
a  pretext  to  cast  her  off.  But  very  solemnly 
he  answered  that  the  end  was  come  indeed ;  and 
he  charged  her  to  warn  Pietro,  and  begged  her 
to  pray  for  his  wretched  self.  Then  he  left  her, 
sitting  with  her  head  flung  back,  pale  as  death  ; 
and  her  firm-shut  lips  spoke  no  word  of  farewell. 
From  that  he  went  and  made  ready  for  the 
death  to  which  his  treachery  doomed  him,  for 
the  friends  whom  he  had  betrayed  would  suffer 
no  traitor  to  live.  But  though  he  went  to  his 
death,  he  felt  that  a  load  was  off  his  soul.  So 
he  came  to  his  lodging,  and  there  found  waiting 
for  him  a  note  from  Emilia.  "  I  love  you, 
Giulio,"  she  wrote;  "I  will  not  speak.  You 
and  I  shall  belong  to  one  another  in  the  sight 
of  men."  When  he  read  those  lines  his  heart 
stood  still.  With  all  his  speed  he  hurried  to 
the  palace  of  Pietro.  There  he  found  that  Pie 
tro  was  already  dead  ;  and  Emilia  waited  above, 
to  clasp  him  in  her  treacherous  arms  even  while 
Pietro  lay  warm  in  his  blood. 


The  Duchess  Emilia,  183 

"  Then  at  last,"  he  said,  "  I  knew  what  our 
sin  had  been ;  and  full  of  horror,  I  vowed  that 
all  the  rest  of  my  life  should  be  one  long  pen 
ance,  which,  perchance,  might  win  us  the  mercy 
of  God.  So  I  gave  myself  to  God,  whom  I  have 
striven  to  serre  from  that  day  forth.  May  He 
have  mercy  on  my  soul ! " 

With  that  he  bowed  his  head  and  covered  his 
face  with  his  hands.  And  I  stood  still,  full  of 
such  loathing  of  myself  as  I  had  not  dreamed 
of  before.  For  the  sin  which  I  bear  upon  my 
soul  I  knew  at  last  in  all  its  nakedness.  I  had 
thought  it  such  sin  as  men  do  in  the  weakness 
of  the  flesh.  Now  I  knew  that  to  that  sin  which 
had  seemed  enough  was  added  such  dishonor 
as  I  had  not  deemed  in  my  living  life  that  men 
could  work.  In  my  misery  I  groaned  aloud. 
And  when  I  groaned,  he  lifted  up  his  head  once 
more ;  and  I  saw  that  his  face  grew  stern. 

Leave  him,  he  bade  me.  Let  him  never  see 
my  face  again.  I  had  tortured  him  until  he 
had  spoken.  In  God's  name,  let  me  trouble  him 
no  more. 


184  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

So  I  turned  to  go  ;  and  he,  gathering  his 
strength,  sat  watching  me,  as  with  trembling 
steps  I  passed  from  his  presence. 

There  are  tales  of  men,  chased  like  me  by 
the  spectres  of  old  crime,  who  have  come  after 
long  }rears  to  the  judges  and  bidden  them  speak 
a  sentence.  They  were  happier  than  I ;  for 
human  law-givers  would  laugh  at  my  tale.  I 
would  fain  raise  against  myself  the  hand  of  jus 
tice,  and  hiding  from  my  eyes  before  their  time 
the  sunshine  of  the  world,  seek  rest  in  my  grave. 
But  then  I  think  of  what  I  was  and  of  what  I 
am.  Who  knows  into  what  form  the  sinful 
spirit  that  is  mine  might  go  if  it  were  loosed  from 
this?  There  are  tales  at  which  scholars  smile, 
of  wicked  souls  who  prowl  on  the  earth  in  the 
bodies  of  foul  beasts. 

No.  What  I  am  I  must  be,  until  in  the  mercy 
of  God  the  end  of  what  I  am  shall  come.  In 
old  Rome  Emilia  sinned.  She  sinned  with  the 
world  about  her,  —  a  world  that  knew  not  honor 
or  truth.  The  light  of  her  life  was  love.  She 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  185 

loved  with  all  her  earthly  heart ;  and  all  things 
were  bent  before  her  love.  So  she  did  what  her 
love  counselled,  even  to  the  foulest  of  dishonor ; 
and  to  the  very  end  she  knew  no  repentance. 
Then,  in  our  New  England,  where  the  hearts  of 
men  are  as  pure  as  the  clear  air  they  breathe,  I 
was  born  and  was  taught  the  lessons  of  my  peo 
ple  ;  and  I  grew  to  hate  falsehood  and  dishonor, 
and  to  hold  myself  above  the  herd  of  sinners. 
But  in  quiet  hours  I  was  always  sad  with  a  sad 
ness  of  which  I  could  not  guess  the  meaning. 
Now  I  know  it,  as  none  could  know  it  who  was 
not  reared  in  all  the  purity  of  the  home  that  I 
shall  see  no  more.  And  I  must  not  shrink  ;  but 
living  on,  must  ever  be  with  my  sin-stained  self, 
until  perhaps  a  time  may  come  when  deeds  of 
mine  may  win  the  mercy  of  God. 

Yes.  The  life  that  is  must  atone  for  the  sins 
done  in  the  life  that  is  past.  So  on  this  earth 
must  it  ever  be,  until  at  length  to  all  human  life 
shall  come  rest  like  that  from  which,  at  the  voice 
of  God,  it  first  awakened. 


186  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Here,  I  think,  I  may  add  a  few  lines  from 
another  letter  of  Cleveland's  to  my  father. 

"  Beverly,"  he  writes,  "  we  hardly  see.  He 
cannot  forgive  Abby  for  caring  about  his  soul, 
or  me  for  taking  care  of  my  business  reputation. 
After  all,  you  know,  we  painters  have  to  think 
about  our  clients.  Beverly  glides  back  and 
forth  on  the  stairways  here,  as  grim  as  you 
please.  It  is  as  much  as  ever  that  he  will  bow 
to  me.  Such  unreasonable  conduct  in  anybody 
else  would  make  me  real  mad,  as  the  boys  used 
to  say.  But  of  course  it  would  be  absurd  to 
treat  Beverly  as  if  he  were  like  ordinary  human 
beings.  Besides,  do  you  know,  I  cannot  help 
feeling  rather  anxious  about  him.  There  is  a 
queer  look  in  his  eyes.  If  I  had  any  sort  of 
authority  in  the  matter,  I  should  be  inclined  to 
engage  somebody  to  watch  him.  He  needs 
watching,  I  fear,  as  much  as  his  father  did. 
What  a  hideous  thing  this  insanity  is. 

"  By  the  way,  is  there  any  truth  in  these 
rumors  about  the  Franklin  Mills  ?  The  last 
dividend  was  smaller  than  I  expected." 


XIV. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

AST  came  down  the  staircase  of  the  Colonna 
•^*-  palace,  bound  I  know  not  whither,  I  saw 
just  within  the  entrance  door  the  black  figure 
of  Dei  Bardi.  He  was  speaking  hurriedly  to  a 
servant,  whom  he  held  close  by  the  wall  so  that 
they  could  not  be  seen  from  without ;  and  he 
pointed  with  a  hand  that  shook  with  excitement 
toward  something  from  which  they  were  sep 
arated  by  the  wall.  Then  I  saw  the  servant 
nod  his  head,  as  if  he  understood  the  charge 
that  was  given  him ;  but  in  spite  of  Mon- 
signor's  excitement  the  fellow  passed  out  of 
the  door  with  no  hurried  step.  It  seemed, 
indeed,  as  if  he  studied  to  appear  unconcerned. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  priest  so  studied  too ;  for 
when  the  man  was  gone  he  gathered  himself 
together  and  stood  still  for  a  moment.  Then, 


188  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

with  his  head  bent  down  like  one  in  deep 
thought,  he  slowly  stepped  out  of  the  door  too, 
and  turned  in  the  direction  in  which  the  ser 
vant  had  not  gone.  But  I  saw  his  eyes  peering 
out  from  under  the  broad  brim  of  his  hat,  to 
make  sure  that  something  before  him  was  really 
what  he  deemed  it. 

So  when  I  passed  out  of  the  door  in  his  foot 
steps  I  'looked  the  same  way,  curious  to  know 
what  had  so  moved  him.  Before  me  stood  a  rnan 
of  the  people,  leaning  lazily  against  the  palace 
wall.  If  I  had  not  seen  that  Dei  Bardi  thought 
him  no  common  sight  I  should  have  passed  him 
without  a  look ;  but  now  that  my  attention 
was  aroused,  I  looked  at  him  closely,  and  knew 
him  for  the  man  I  had  seen  in  the  church  of 
Santa  Emilia,  —  the  Count  Luigi. 

He  was  come  here,  perhaps,  in  the  wild  hope 
that  he  might  catch  a  glimpse  of  Filippa's  face, 
that  he  might  see  a  loving  look  in  the  eyes 
that  would  know  him  in  spite  of  his  mean 
dress.  Not  thinking  of  his  danger,  he  waited, 
while  his  enemies  were  gone  on  either  side  to 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  189 

fetch  the  officers  who  should  seize  him.  A  few 
moments  more,  and  he  would  be  carried  off  to 
the  prison  whence  the  foes  of  the  Pope  do  not 
emerge. 

I  could  lose  no  time,  and  I  could  not  bid 
him  fly,  for  wherever  he  went  he  would  meet 
the  enemies  that  were  gathering  about  him. 
So,  with  no  thought  save  for  his  safety,  I  called 
his  name  in  a  low  voice  and  beckoned  him  to 
come  within  the  palace  door.  When  he  heard 
me  call  him  he  looked  up ;  and  a  great  curse 
sprang  to  his  lips  as  he  saw  that  I  knew  him. 

"Take  care,"  he  said  between  his  teeth,  as 
he  came  toward  me.  "You  call  yourself  my 
friend,  and  you  track  me  like  a  dog  who  follows 
his  master  unbidden,  and  licks  his  hand  when 
the  enemy  is  upon  him.  Such  dogs  are  struck 
down." 

I  made  no  answer  to  his  threat,  but  in  hur 
ried  words  told  him  his  danger.  Then,  for  I 
thought  of  no  other  way  to  save  him,  I  placed 
in  his  hand  the  key  of  my  rooms,  and  bade 
him  hurry  thither  and  there  hide  himself  until 


190  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

such  time  as  he  might  find  to  come  forth  un 
noticed. 

As  he  heard  me  speak  he  looked  at  me  with 
wonder.  Did  I  know,  he  asked  me,  that  what 
I  proposed  meant  a  prison  for  me  too  ?  For  he 
who  shields  the  enemies  of  the  Pope  makes 
himself  of  their  number. 

I  answered  him  that  I  cared  nothing  for  that. 
Let  him  hasten,  or  he  would  be  too  late. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  asked,  "what  I  should 
say  if  you  were  one  of  my  people?  I  should 
say  that  this  was  a  trap  ;  that  you  loved  Filippa 
yourself  and  would  take  this  way  to  clear  me 
from  your  path.  And  I  would  kill  you  here ; 
and  wait  for  Dei  Bardi  if  he  ever  came." 

His  words  made  me  angry.  Do  as  he  would, 
I  bade  him ;  I  could  do  no  more.  And  I  turned 
away,  ready  to  pass  into  the  narrow  street.  But 
just  as  I  turned  he  seized  my  hand,  and  drew 
me  back. 

"  I  will  trust  you,"  he  said ;  "  you  have  been 
reared  in  a  land  of  freedom  and  of  truth." 

With  that  he  left  me,  and  glided  swiftly  up 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  191 

the  great  stairway.  And  I  went  out  into  the 
street.  For  in  Rome  I  have  learned  to  dis 
semble  ;  I  have  breathed  in  the  lesson  with 
the  Roman  air;  perhaps  there  has  risen  to  life 
within  me  some  memory  of  the  old  wiles  that 
Emilia  Colonna  cast  about  her.  And  even 
though  what  Luigi  said  was  true,  and  I  had 
indeed  been  reared  in  a  land  where  frankness 
and  truth  are  the  habit  of  men,  the  thought 
that  rose  uppermost  in  my  mind  was  that  I 
must  act  as  if  I  had  not  known  that  Luigi  was 
by,  lest  Monsignor,  who  perhaps  had  seen  me 
on  the  stairway  behind  him,  might  be  roused 
to  wonder  why  I  had  turned  back. 

So  forth  I  went  into  the  Roman  sunshine. 
And  as  I  passed  the  corner  of  a  street  close  by, 
I  saw  the  black-robed  priest,  no  longer  deep 
in  pretended  thought,  hurrying  toward  me  with 
officers  at  so  swift  a  pace  that  his  black  cloak 
swelled  behind  him  in  the  wind.  When  he 
came  in  sight  of  the  palace  and  saw  that  Luigi 
was  no  longer  there,  I  heard  him  utter  a  great 
oath  of  anger.  Then  he  quickened  his  pace, 


192  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

beckoning  the  officers  to  follow.  And  I  went 
another  way,  and  wandered  for  a  while  about 
the  Roman  streets. 

Then  by  and  by,  when  I  thought  that  time 
enough  had  passed  for  no  one  to  look  askance 
at  me,  I  came  back  and  passed  up  the  stone 
stairway.  There  nothing  met  me  save  the 
shadows  of  the  olden  time  that  fall  upon  my 
soul  when  I  pass  the  spot  where  the  olden  time 
worked  out  its  doom.  So  I  came  to  my  own 
door,  where  I  knocked  gently ;  and  the  Count 
Luigi  opened  it. 

When  he  saw  me  his  face  was  lighted  with  a 
look  of  welcome  greeting.  He  drew  me  within 
the  door ;  and  when  the  door  was  closed  behind 
me,  he  flung  his  arms  about  me  as  he  had  flung 
them  when  we  met  on  the  stairway,  on  the  day 
when  Filippa  pledged  her  faith  to  Palchi.  He 
pressed  me  close  to  his  heart,  pouring  forth  a 
flood  of  grateful  words.  He  had  wronged  me. 
He  had  let  himself  believe  that  I  would  betray 
him,  that  I  did  not  hold  him  dear.  And  now 
I  had  proven  that  I  was  the  faithful  friend 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  193 

he  had  been  used  to  deem  me  ;  I  had  saved  his 
life  from  his  enemies.  He  would  roll  at  my 
feet,  craving  pardon  for  the  thought  that  had 
wronged  me.  He  would  tear  out  the  part  of 
his  heart  that  had  swerved  from  trust  in  me. 
So  he  spoke,  with  all  the  passion  of  his  people. 

When  the  first  tempest  of  his  speech  was  over, 
I  asked  him  why  he  was  come  back  to  Rome, 
where  every  door- way  might  be  a  trap. 

He  thrust  his  hand  into  his  breast  and  drew 
forth  a  dagger. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  he  said.  "  It  was  to  drive 
this  into  Palchi's  heart.  He  shall  not  live  to 
call  Filippa  his  wife." 

I  looked  at  him  startled.  I  had  not  dreamed 
that  the  passion  of  his  love  had  swept  him  on 
so  far.  And  he,  with  growing  anger,  told  me 
how  the  time  was  running  short,  how  in  few 
days  the  hour  would  come  when  Palchi  should 
claim  his  bride.  He  had  tried  to  bear  the 
thought  that  this  hour  was  at  hand,  to  trust 
fate  that  in  future  time  he  might  come  to  his 
love  and  laugh  with  her  in  secret  at  her  dapper 

13 


194  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

husband  ;  but  when  he  thought  how  Palchi  was 
to  call  her  his,  to  clasp  her,  even  loveless,  in  his 
thin  arms,  all  Luigi's  heart  rose  up  in  protest. 
He  swore  an  oath  that  Palchi  should  die.  Be 
fore  Heaven,  he  swore  to  me  again,  he  would 
keep  his  oath.  I  had  saved  him  that  he  might 
keep  it.  To-day  he  had  known  that  Palchi 
was  to  pass  within  the  Colonna  palace,  on  some 
errand  with  the  Cardinal  Giulio.  At  the  palace 
door  he  had  stood  waiting  ;  and  when  the 
prince  stepped  forth  it  would  have  been  to 
meet  an  unshriven  death.  Unkind  fate  had 
thrown  Dei  Bardi  in  his  way  ;  then  Heaven 
had  sent  me  to  save  him,  that  Palchi  might  die. 
For  die  he  should  ;  there  was  still  time. 

I  shrank  from  him,  filled  as  he  was  with  sin 
ful  thoughts.  What  good,  I  asked  him,  could 
come  of  such  a  deed  ?  More  than  ever  it  would 
part  him  from  Filippa. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  they  will  put  me  to  death. 
But  I  shall  sleep  quiet  in  my  grave ;  for  the 
man  that  has  stolen  my  love  will  be  as  cold 
as  I." 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  195 

Let  him  beware,  I  cried,  full  of  the  agony  that 
lay  hidden  in  the  grave  of  Emilia.  Those  who 
die  in  sin  may  not  sleep  in  peaceful  graves. 

Then  he  laughed  aloud.  I  was  always  prating 
of  sin,  he  said.  Life  was  sin  to  me.  Love  was 
sin.  Then,  as  he  spoke,  his  cheek  began  to 
burn  and  his  eye  to  flash  with  fresh  fire. 

Did  I  know,  he  asked  me,  what  my  prating 
of  sin  had  led  to  ?  It  had  led  to  this ;  and  he 
held  up  the  dagger  again  before  my  eyes. 

What  he  meant  I  could  not  tell.  I  bade  him 
speak  plain. 

In  Emilia's  church,  he  told  me,  he  had  come 
to  meet  Filippa,  who  had  slipped  away  in  secret 
from  her  people.  Thence  he  had  planned  that 
they  should  fly  together  to  the  secret  places 
where  his  friends  lay  hidden.  There,  with 
hearts  full  of  love  for  one  another  and  for  Italy, 
they  would  have  laughed  when  they  thought  of 
the  baffled  folk  in  Rome  :  of  grim  Dei  Bardi, 
biting  his.  nails  in  vexation ;  of  the  stern  Count 
ess,  filling  her  palace  with  impotent  curses ;  of 
trim  Palchi,  strutting  and  showing  his  teeth, 


196  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

the  laughing-stock  of  the  town  ;  of  pious  Car 
dinal  Giulio,  praying  that  all  men  might  be 
saved.  Then  I  had  come  between  them,  and 
unknowing  had  checked  their  flight.  Now  it 
was  too  late.  He  could  not  make  his  plans 
again.  There  was  nothing  left  but  this  :  again 
he  held  the  knife  in  his  hand. 

I  looked  at  him,  sick  at  heart.  I  made  no 
answer.  Was  this,  I  thought,  my  mission  in 
the  wretched  life  that  I  may  not  cut  short? 
Must  I  spread  about  me,  in  the  form  that  is 
mine,  evil  and  misery  and  guilt,  even  as  in  the 
olden  time  Emilia  Colonna  spread  them  about 
her  path  ?  Longing  to  do  good,  to  win  my  right 
to  the  salvation  that  I  have  dared  to  hope  for  in 
the  time  that  is  to  come,  must  I  unwittingly 
spurn  from  me  and  cast  down  into  sin  deep  as 
that  from  which  I  struggle  to  be  free,  the  souls 
of  the  men  that  are  about  me  ?  It  were  better, 
I  thought,  that  I  should  rest  among  the  damned. 

What  look  was  in  my  face  I  know  not ;  but  it 
must  have  been  a  strange  one.  For  as  the  Count 
Luigi  gazed  upon  me  I  saw  him  grow  pale.  He 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  197 

seized  my  arm.  In  Heaven's  name,  he  asked 
me,  what  was  in  my  mind? 

I  shook  my  head.  I  could  not  speak.  I  was 
full  of  that  nameless  agony  which  falls  upon  me 
at  those  times  of  my  life  when  a  little  more  of 
what  is  to  come  is  revealed  to  me  at  last.  The 
writhing  clouds  that  make  past  and  present 
seem  like  one  long  evil  dream  from  which  there 
is  no  waking  were  gathered  before  my  eyes.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  the  walls  which  were  about 
me,  that  the  startled  man  who  stood  before  me, 
were  made  of  such  vapors  as  curl  thick  through 
summer  skies.  A  breath  of  wind  might  change 
their  quivering  forms  to  a  shapeless  mist,  dark 
and  murky  and  fearful. 

Then  I  heard  the  dount  Luigi  cry  out  again 
in  passion.  Was  I  faithless  after  all  ?  Would 
I  betray  him  because  I  was  pleased  to  say  that 
what  he  did  was  sinful  ?  By  Heaven,  I  should 
be  the  first  to  feel  the  sin  ! 

What  happened  then  I  know  not ;  for  the 
winds  of  confusion  broke  in  upon  the  vapors 
that  writhed  about  me,  and  all  was  darkness, 


198  The  Duchess  JZmilia. 

in  which  I  struggled  I  knew  not  whither.  But 
when  at  last  the  light  gleamed  upon  me  once 
more,  and  I  knew  myself,  and  where  I  was  and 
what  I  did,  I  was  standing  erect  on  the  spot 
where  I  had  stood  before.  And  in  my  hand 
was  the  dagger  which  the  Count  Luigi  had 
held ;  and  the  Count  Luigi,  pale  and  trembling, 
lay  at  my  feet,  as  if  he  had  been  flung  down  ; 
and  I  was  speaking  and  he  listening,  as  if  my 
words  were  the  words  of  a  prophet. 

Then  I  stretched  out  my  hand  and  raised 
him,  and  I  bade  him  be  of  good  cheer  and  trust 
me,  for  all  should  be  well  with  him. 

For  the  writhing  clouds  were  gone,  and  I 
saw  the  light  of  God's  day ;  and  by  it  I  knew 
that  though  the  deeds  by  which  I  may  win  my 
right  to  rest  were  still  afar  off,  there  was  a  deed 
that  I  might  do  even  now  which  should  save 
from  sin  these  friends  who  suffered  before  my 
eyes  the  first  agonies  of  lives  that  without  me 
might  end  in  agony  like  mine. 

Be  of  good  cheer,  I  bade  him  again.  Trust 
in  me;  and  I  would  make  Filippa  his  before 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  199 

the  eyes  of  God  and  men  ;  and  Palchi  should 
live,  to  strut  in  Rome  until  he  found  another 
bride  to  dower  with  his  millions ;  and  oil 
Filippa's  soul  and  Luigi's  there  should  be  no 
stain  of  sin  to  darken  the  love  that  should  fill 
their  lives  until  Heaven  called  them  to  the  rest 
of  its  eternities. 

Then  the  Count  Luigi  slowly  rose  up,  and 
with  trembling  voice  told  me  that  he  knew  not 
my  meaning,  but  that  he  could  not  help  trust 
ing  one  that  spoke  as  I  spoke,  for  my  words 
were  no  words  of  earth.  And  bending  down, 
he  kissed  my  hand. 

With  that  I  bade  him  go  hide  himself  in  an 
inner  chamber  until  I  should  call  him  forth  ; 
and  thither  he  went.  Then,  left  alone,  I 
gathered  up  my  strength  and  prepared  to  do 
the  work  that  should  save  him,  praying  in  my 
heart  that  in  good  time  the  light  might  come 
which  should  show  to  me  the  work  that  shall 
win  the  salvation  which  is  rest  for  the  soul 
that  I  call  mine. 


XV. 

From  Beverly's  Journal. 

T)EFORE  I  set  out  I  looked  within  the  room 
*-*  where  Luigi  was  gone,  on  whose  service  I 
was  bound.  Tired  out,  he  had  fallen  asleep, 
and  slept  peacefully  as  a  child.  So  might 
Giulio  have  slept  in  the  olden  time,  when  his 
life  was  still  free  from  sin,  smiling  as  he 
dreamed  of  the  woman,  the  thought  of  whom 
was  303%  I  looked  at  Luigi,  keeping  very  still 
for  fear  that  I  might  arouse  him.  I  found  my 
self  unawares  speaking  words  of  blessing,  such 
as  old  folk  speak.  For  though  I  seem  near  to 
Luigi  in  years,  my  soul-life  runs  back  in  the 
past ;  and  with  it  runs  memory,  until  I  feel 
older  than  any  gray-beard.  Then  I  left  him 
gently  resting,  and  made  my  way  to  Giulio 
Colonna's  door. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  201 

They  would  have  kept  me  out,  but  I  gave 
them  gold,  whereat  they  grinned  and  bowed 
as  they  might  have  bowed  before  an  angel.  So 
I  passed  in,  and  coming  to  the  room  where 
Giulio  Colonna  sits,  I  entered  as  I  had  been 
used  to  enter  in  the  days  of  our  friendship, 
unannounced. 

The  Cardinal  Giulio  sat  alone  as  I  had  seen 
him  sit  before  ;  but  his  look  was  different  from 
any  that  I  had  known  as  his.  Deep  in  thought 
I  had  seen  him ;  full  of  concern  and  trouble, 
too ;  at  other  times  calm  and  smiling ;  but 
never  until  now  full  of  busy  life.  His  back 
was  turned  to  me,  as  he  sat  in  his  carven  chair, 
leaning  forward  over  his  table.  I  could  hear 
the  sharp  scratching  of  his  pen,  for  he  was 
writing  swiftly,  like  the  bustling  merchants 
whom  I  used  to  watch  at  home  in  their  dreary 
counting-houses.  In  his  bearing  there  was  no 
trace  of  age  or  of  reverence.  Of  old  he  had 
been  a  man  apart  from  the  world ;  now  he 
seemed  of  the  world,  straining  every  nerve  in 
the  race  of  life. 


202  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

When  he  heard  my  step,  he  did  not  turn  his 
head  or  stop  his  writing  ;  but  raising  his  left  hand 
with  a  gesture  of  beckoning,  he  spoke  in  a  low 
voice  words  which  I  could  not  hear.  I  stepped 
closer  to  him.  In  a  moment  he  spoke  again,  with 
some  shade  of  displeasure  in  his  tone. 

"  I  have  asked  you,  Monsignor,"  he  said, 
"what  news  you  bring  of  Capellari." 

For  a  little  while  I  did  not  perceive  his  mean 
ing,  so  full  was  my  mind  of  what  I  was  come  to  say 
to  him  ;  so  I  made  no  answer.  Then  of  a  sudden 
I  remembered  how  there  were  stories  abroad  in 
Rome  that  Pope  Gregory  was  ailing,  and'  that 
churchmen  were  busying  their  brains  about 
who  should  be  his  successor.  Of  these  tales  I 
had  thought  little,  for  to  me  it  mattered  not 
who  sat  in  the  Vatican.  But  here  before  me 
was  one  to  whom  it  mattered  much  ;  and  full 
of  the  thought  of  what  might  come  to  him  he 
asked  me,  whom  he  thought  his  wily  chaplain, 
for  news  of  the  man  whose  death  he  longed  for. 
I  was  sick  at  heart,  thinking  how  far  his  mind 
had  travelled  from  such  thoughts  as  I  had 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  203 

hoped  to  find  it  busy  with.  And  he,  when  I 
did  not  speak,  stopped  Jiis  pen  and  turned 
about,  his  face  full  of  displeasure. 

"Do  you  not  hear  my  question  ?  "  he  began. 
Then,  when  he  saw  who  was  with  him,  he 
flung  down  his  pen  and  sat  erect  facing  ine, 
his  features  flushed  with  anger. 

By  what  right,  he  asked  me,  was  I  come 
thither  ?  He  had  bidden  me  come  no  more. 
He  had  spoken  out  those  things  which  the 
spells  I  cast  upon  him  had  forced  from  his  lips. 
As  he  spoke  he  grew  troubled.  My  presence 
seemed  to  bring  back  the  old  thoughts  that  he 
had  put  aside.  In  God's  name,  he  cried,  leave 
him  in  peace  !  Go,  or  he  would  have  me  thrust 
forth  by  his  lackeys. 

Then  I  spoke  to  him  gently.  It  was  for  no 
affair  of  mine  nor  of  his,  I  said,  that  I  was  come. 
For  my  sake  and  for  his  I  would  have  left  him 
in  peace  with  all  my  heart,  and  borne  with  no 
groans  those  burdens  of  his  which  he  had  laid 
upon  me,  even  as  I  bore  my  own.  It  was  for 
the  sake  of  others  that  I  was  come,  of  others 


204  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

whom  he  loved ;  and,  with  the  blessing  of 
Heaven,  I  would  com£  before  him  no  more  on 
this  earth  if  he  would  let  me  speak  to-day. 

He  looked  at  me  for  a  moment  without  an 
answer,  his  face  full  of  anger  and  of  doubt. 
Nay,  it  seemed  that  in  his  eye  there  was  some 
touch  of  fear.  For  though  he  could  not  know 
what  I  am,  he  could  not  but  feel  that  I  am 
such  a  thing  as  never  crossed  his  path  before. 
Old  sins  in  this  earth  lie  buried  to  rise  only 
when  the  day  of  reckoning  shall  come  ;  but  I, 
by  that  strange  doom  that  is  half  a  blessing, 
walk  the  earth,  a  living  sin.  I  cast  my  shadow 
upon  all  about  me  ;  and  most  of  all  upon  him 
who  knew  me  in  the  form  that  of  old  was  mine. 

Speak,  he  said  at  length,  but  let  my  words 
be  numbered,  and  let  them  be  the  last  that  he 
should  ever  hear  from  my  lips. 

So  I  spoke,  with  a  flood  of  passion  that  was 
strange  to  me.  My  words  came  to  my  lips  and 
I  spoke  them  out  unthinking,  my  heart  full  of 
the  mission  on  which  I  was  come.  And  Giulio 
Colouna  listened  and  was  moved.  At  first 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  205 

he  seemed  impatient,  longing  that  I  should  be 
done ;  but  as  I  spoke  I  saw  his  face  grow  grave 
and  passionate,  and  his  eyes  flash  with  a  fire  as 
if  of  sympathy.  Then  the  strength  that  his 
form  had  shown  seemed  to  leave  him  ;  and  he 
leaned  back  in  his  carven  chair,  busy  with  no 
thoughts  save  those  which  I  poured  forth. 

At  first,  I  think,  I  began  to  speak  of  the 
olden  time  of  which  he  had  told  me  the  story, 
reminding  him  how  he  knew  what  love  might 
make  men  do.  Blessed  by  Heaven,  no  holier 
power  than  love  dwells  on  the  earth  ;  unblessed, 
there  is  no  fouler  fiend.  And  that,  I  told  him, 
none  could  know  better  than  he,  who  has 
prayed  through  long  years  to  be  freed  from  its 
curses ;  nor  yet  than  Emilia,  who  groans  out 
such  agonies  as  death  alone  can  bring. 

When  I  spoke  her  name  he  moaned  aloud, 
but  I  did  not  check  my  speech ;  and  presently 
he  asked  me  why  I  dragged  his  sins  back  from 
the  grave. 

Then  I  told  him  that  it  was  to  show  into  what 
dangers  others  might  fall.  And  he  asked  me 


206  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

what  others  I  meant,  and  what  they  had  to  do 
with  him.  And  I  told  him  that  I  meant  the  girl 
whom  he  was  giving  over  to  a  loveless  wedlock. 
Thereupon  he  asked  me  what  I  knew  of  her.  And 
I  said  that  by  chance  I  knew  more  than  he. 

With  that  he  turned  upon  me  with  a  face  of 
such  passion  as  in  all  my  life  I  had  never  seen. 
Had  I  dared,  he  cried,  to  play  the  knave  within 
his  doors?  Then,  by  Heaven,  I  should  feel 
what  he  could  do ! 

But  when  he  spoke  thus  I  broke  into  anger 
too,  and  cried  out  louder  than  he.  Was  his 
mind  so  foul,  I  asked  him,  that  even  in  the 
quiet  of  the  home  that  he  had  made  holy  with  his 
prayers,  he  could  harbor  no  thought  of  purity  ? 
Then  truly  the  curse  that  had  fallen  upon  him 
when'  he  sinned  with  Emilia  was  upon  him  still 
in  all  its  blackness.  And  I  spoke  more  to  the 
same  end,  full  of  anger  ;  and  presently  I  saw 
that  he  was  struck  with  shame.  For  he  bent 
down  his  head,  and  spoke  gently,  bidding  me 
tell  him  what,  then,  my  words  had  meant. 

A  simple  thing,  I  answered  him.     Only  that 


The  Duchess  JZmilia.  207 

Filippa,  whom  he  would  sell  to  grinning  Palchi, 
loved  another  as  dearly  as  in  the  olden  time 
Emilia  had  loved  him.  By  a  strange  chance 
the  knowledge  of  this  love  was  come  to  me  ; 
and  now  I  brought  it  to  him,  so  that  he  might 
draw  back  in  time,  and  check  the  fresh  begin 
ning  of  work  such  as  had  wrought  the  misery 
of  his  life.  For  in  loving  wedlock  the  girl 
might  still  live  pure,  and  give  to  the  world 
children  on  whom  she  could  look  without  a 
blush,  in  the  pride  of  holy  motherhood.  But 
if  she  should  wed  as  he'  bade  her,  then  in  the 
ages  to  come  he  should  hear  her  groans  mingled 
with  the  groans  of  Emilia  rising  above  the 
echoes  of  hell.  And  even  though  he  who  heard 
might  be  sitting  among  the  blessed,  he  should 
sit  there  damned  by  the  knowledge  that  deeds 
of  his  had  set  these  sinners  a-groaning. 

So  I  called  upon  him,  in  the  name  of  the  dead 
Emilia,  to  stop  this  work  before  it  was  too  late  ; 
to  cast  off  Palchi,  to  join  Filippa  to  her  love.  I 
called  upon  him  in  the  name  of  Emilia,  in  mine 
own. 


208  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

In  God's  name,  he  asked  me,  who  was  I  that 
spoke  ? 

Then  I  found  that  I  could  not  tell  him,  for 
something  bade  me  keep  back  the  truth.  But 
this  I  said :  I  was  one  who  had  sinned  as  in 
the  olden  time  Emilia  had  sinned ;  who  knew 
tortures  like  hers ;  who  would  give  my  life-blood 
to  save  another  from  such  a  life  as  I  dragged 
out  in  agony  deeper  than  the  agony  which  he 
had  known  through  all  the  years  of  his  repent 
ance.  For  my  sake,  I  cried  again,  for  the  sake 
of  one  who  knows  as  no  other  living  thing  can 
know  what  comes  to  those  who  have  forgotten 
the  commands  of  God,  let  no  such  work  begin 
again ! 

Then  I  saw  that  he  was  greatly  moved  ;  for 
his  face  was  very  pale  and  very  grave.  And  it 
seemed  as  if  in  the  depths  of  his  heart  there  was 
such  a  struggle  as  heaven  wages  with  hell  when 
the  souls  of  men  are  at  stake.  And  presently 
he  asked  me  who  the  man  was  whose  cause  I 
came  to  plead.  And  I  told  him  that  it  was  the 
Count  Luigi. 


The  Duchess  JZmilia.  209 

When  he  heard  that  name  his  anger  blazed 
up  afresh.  Did  I  know,  he  asked  me,  of  whom 
I  spoke  ?  He  had  cherished  the  Count  Luigi 
as  he  would  have  cherished  his  own  child  ;  and 
with  black  treachery  Luigi  had  turned  upon 
him  and  betrayed  him  to  his  enemies.  Yes  ;  and 
the  treachery  with  which  I  charged  Luigi  in 
stealing  Filippa's  heart  made  the  old  treachery 
doubly  black.  This  creature  whose  cause  I 
came  to  plead  had  done  his  best  to  overthrow 
the  structure  Avhich  he,  —  Giulio  Colonna, —  this 
creature's  greatest  benefactor,  had  reared  with 
the  labor  of  all  his  lifetime.  And  to  serve  the 
pleasure  of  this  traitor  I  would  have  him  break 
his  pledged  word.  The  plan  was  mad.  So  he 
raved  on  in  his  anger. 

When  he  paused  I  spoke  very  solemnly.  Did 
I  guess  his  meaning  aright  ?  I  asked  him.  Had 
he  set  his  heart,  as  men  said  that  he  had  set  it, 
on  Saint  Peter's  chair  ?  And  had  the  Count's 
flight  made  men  whisper  that  the  Count's 
friends  were  privy  to  the  plots  of  those  who 
work  against  the  Pope  ?  Beneath  the  holy 
14 


210  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

surface  of  his  daily  life,  was  his  heart  in  truth 
full  of  such  wiles  as  his  grinning  chaplain,  with 
all  his  art,  had  not  the  art  to  conceal  ?  Did 
he,  —  Giulio,  with  his  white  hair  and  his  saint's 
face,  —  still  pant  for  the  prizes  of  this  world  ? 

What  right  had  I,  he  cried,  to  catechise  him  ? 

The  right,  I  told  him,  of  one  who  was  come 
to  warn  him  in  time.  Let  him  with  all  his  heart 
fall  to  the  prayers  that  in  the  past  he  had  only 
mouthed.  Let  him,  as  he  hoped  for  pardon  and 
salvation  in  the  world  to  come,  —  and  soon  to 
come  for  him,  —  cast  aside  all  care  for  what 
might  chance  in  this. 

In  God's  name,  he  cried,  had  not  his  fastings 
and  his  prayers  won  him  freedom  from  thoughts 
like  these  ? 

Then  I  told  him  that  freedom  from  thoughts 
like  these  comes  only  when  God's  judges  have 
spoken  words  of  mercy  to  a  pardoned  soul.  As 
he  hoped  for  that  mercy,  let  his  only  thoughts 
on  earth  be  of  what  good  he  might  still  do  to 
make  amends  for  the  evil  that  in  the  past 
he  had  wrought.  Unknowing,  I  was  come  with 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  211 

a  message  of  salvation  to  him  too,  who  stood  in 
sorer  need  even  than  those  whom  I  would  check 
from  plunging  into  sin.  As  he  loved  his  soul, 
let  not  that  message  pass  unheeded ! 

How  could  he  know,  he  cried,  that  what  I 
said  was  not  all  a  lie  ? 

Send  for  Filippa,  I  told  him.  Ask  her  for  the 
truth. 

Even  as  I  spoke  the  door  opened,  and  Dei 
Bardi  stood  before  us.  Some  message  of  state 
craft  was  on  his  lips,  for  before  he  saw  me  he 
had  spoken  the  name  of  Capellari.  But  when 
he  saw  that  the  Cardinal  Giulio  was  not  alone, 
he  stood  still,  his  broad-brimmed  hat  in  his 
hand,  his  face  full  of  stern  business. 

"  I  must  speak  with  His  Eminence,"  he  said 
almost  roughly. 

With  no  answer,  I  turned  to  Giulio  Colonna 
and  bade  him  send  the  priest  for  Filippa.  He 
looked  upon  me  full  of  surprise,  for  in  all  the 
years  that  had  passed  since  he  had  been  a 
prince  of  the  Church  no  man  had  dared  speak 
to  him  as  I  spoke.  I  did  not  hesitate.  I  spoke 


212  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

to  him  again,  bidding  him,  as  he  loved  his  soul, 
send  the  priest  to  fetch  the  girl. 

Then,  very  slowly,  the  Cardinal  Giulio  turned 
to  Dei  Bardi,  and  told  him  that  he  could  hear 
no  message,  for  he  had  business  with  Filippa, 
whom  he  prayed  that  the  priest  would  summon. 
And  in  the  depths  of  my  heart  I  thanked  God 
that  I  had  won  my  fight. 

The  black-robed  priest,  seized  with  astonish 
ment,  spoke  some  word  of  remonstrance,  whereat 
Giulio's  wrath  was  aroused  once  more.  With 
a  burst  of  passion  as  fierce  as  the  Count  Luigi's, 
he  bade  the  priest  hasten  to  do  what  he  had 
commanded.  No  man  should  disobey  his  word. 

"  Go !  "  he  cried.  And  Dei  Bardi,  with  a 
low  bow,  glided  off,  amazed.  Before  long  he 
came  back,  saying  that  the  girl  was  at  hand. 
Then  Giulio,  who  had  said  no  word  since  the 
priest  had  left  us,  bade  him  wait  without  until 
he  was  summoned.  So,  full  of  vexation,  he 
withdrew ;  and  presently  Filippa  came. 

When  she  saw  that  I  was  there,  her  face 
blazed  with  such  anger  as  in  the  faces  of 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  213 

Grecian  gods  struck  death  to  the  hearts  of  men. 
Was  I  come  after  all,  she  cried,  to  persecute  her 
with  my  lies  ? 

Very  gently  I  answered  her  that  she  had  best 
go  ask  the  Cardinal  Colonna  what  I  had  said ; 
and  as  she  loved  her  happiness  and  her  soul  she 
had  best  speak  the  truth. 

Very  gently,  then,  the  Cardinal  Giulio  beck 
oned  her  to  come  to  him,  and  took  her  by  the 
hand,  and  spoke  to  her  in  a  whisper  that  I 
could  not  hear.  And  I,  turning  aside,  saw 
that  I  was  close  to  the  crucifix  where  the 
Cardinal  Giulio  was  used  to  pray  in  the  hours 
of  his  trouble.  So  I  kneeled  me  down,  and 
prayed  in  silence  that  the  work  which  I  was 
about  might  prosper ;  that  these  lives  which 
my  life  had  crossed  might  be  blessed  by  my 
passage ;  that  Giulio  and  Luigi  and  Filippa 
might  be  saved  from  such  misery  as  mine ;  and 
that,  when  God  in  Heaven  deemed  that  my 
hour  was  come,  some  light  might  gleam  to  me 
over  the  path  by  which  I  might  struggle  on  to 
the  salvation  which  is  rest. 


214  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Then,  when  my  prayer  was  done,  and  once 
more  I  began  to  listen  to  what  was  going  on 
about  me,  I  heard  the  sound  of  weeping.  And 
turning  about,  I  saw  Filippa  kneeling  at  Giulio's 
feet,  her  face  hidden  in  his  robes,  her  form 
quivering  with  great  sobs ;  and  Giulio's  old 
eyes  were  full  of  tears,  and  his  thin  hand  with 
its  gleaming  jewel  stroked  her  black  hair,  and 
his  face  was  as  gentle  as  the  face  of  an  angel. 
Then  I  knew  that  he  was  saved,  and  that  she 
was  saved,  and  that  the  words  he  whispered  in 
her  ear  were  the  words  that  bore  from  God  the 
message  of  their  salvation.  So,  full  of  grati 
tude  that  my  prayer  for  them  had  been  an 
swered,  I  knelt  again,  and  poured  forth  a  flood 
of  thanksgiving,  trusting  that  in  days  to  come 
the  mercy  that  has  been  shown  to  them  may 
at  last  be  shown  to  me. 


XVI. 

"\  T  7ITH  these  words  Beverly's  journal  ends. 
*  *  The  manuscript  breaks  off  abruptly  in 
the  middle  of  a  page.  There  is  no  record  of 
how  or  when  the  last  lines  were  written ;  but 
from  what  I  have  been  able  to  learn  of  the  rest  of 
his  story  I  have  grown  to  think  that  there  was 
but  one  time  when  he  could  have  written  them. 
This  was  during  the  last  hours  of  the  day  when 
he  had  found  Luigi  at  the  palace  door  and  had 
gone  from  him  to  the  Cardinal  Colonna.  There 
is  nothing  except  what  happened  afterwards  to 
show  how  his  interview  with  the  Cardinal  and 
Filippa  ended.  From  what  happened  after 
wards,  however,  I  feel  sure  that  it  was  short. 
Beverly  must  have  told  them  where  Luigi  lay 
hidden ;  the  Cardinal  must  have  promised  that 
in  the  quiet  of  the  night  he  would  bring  the  girl 
up  the  palace  stairs  to  the  chamber  where  her 


216  The  Duchess  JSmilia. 

lover  waited,  and  there  join  them  with  the 
blessing  of  the  Church.  Then  they  should  go 
in  peace  to  some  place  of  safety. 

I  like  to  think,  then,  that  in  the  early  hours 
of  the  night,  while  Beverly  and  Luigi  watched 
together  for  those  who  were  coming,  Beverly 
took  his  pen,  and  wrote  in  his  book  the  thoughts 
that  troubled  his  brain.  I  like  to  think,  too, 
that  in  writing  them  he  found  such  comfort  as 
men  always  find  in  speaking  out,  even  to  deaf 
leaves  of  paper.  It  is  your  silent  men,  who 
keep  all  things  to  themselves,  that  go  mad. 
Richard  Beverly's  father,  they  say,  had  no 
friends  to  whom  he  opened  his  heart,  and,  like 
many  another  prudent  man,  held  that  one  who 
wrote  down  what  might  not  be  read  by  all  the 
world  was  a  fool.  By  and  by  he  cut  his  throat. 
Richard  Beverly's  mother  left  reams  of  senti 
mental  journals  behind  her,  and  lived  to  a  good 
old  age. 

So  I  like  to  think  of  Richard  Beverly,  in  his 
great  chamber  lighted  by  a  single  candle,  turn 
ing  to  these  pages  that  received  his  secrets  forty 


The  Duchess  JEmilia.  217 

years  ago,  and  writing  them  down  while  Rome 
slept  about  him,  in  the  last  days  of  the  old  papal 
rule.  I  like  to  think  that  as  he  wrote  he  sighed 
with  the  relief  of  one  who  for  a  time  at  least 
lays  aside  his  burden.  I  like  to  think  that  all 
the  while  the  gallant  young  Roman,  whose 
happiness  Beverly  had  wrought  that  day,  waited 
beside  him  in  the  dim  light,  with  throbbing 
heart,  and  ears  strained  to  catch  the  sound  of 
the  footsteps  that  should  tell  him  of  his  coming 
bride.  I  like  to  think  that  the  sound  of  those 
footsteps  came  as  the  last  lines  in  the  old  jour 
nal  were  writing  ;  that  Richard  Beverly  flung 
down  his  pen  where  he  was,  and  went  and 
opened  his  door,  and  that  there  he  found  the 
old  Cardinal  and  Filippa.  I  like  to  think  that 
when  this  faded  ink  was  still  wet,  the  Count 
Luigi  was  clasping  his  love  in  his  arms,  while 
Richard  Beverly  and  the  Cardinal  Giulio  Co- 
lonna  stood  aside  with  brimming  eyes,  as  they 
thought  of  the  unblessed  loves  of  Emilia  that  in 
a  happier  time  might  have  been  as  pure  as 
these.  But  this  is  all  a  fancv. 


218  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

What  comes  afterwards  I  have  learned  partly 
from  letters  of  Cleveland's,  partly  from  traditions 
of  what  Cleveland  wrote  and  said  about  the  last 
hours  of  Beverly's  life.  For  Cleveland  died 
years  ago,  and  so  did  his  wife,  —  long  before  I 
was  old  enough  to  know  anything  about  these 
matters,  which  nobody  else  could  have  told  me. 
So  I  have  had  to  put  the  tale  together  as  best 
I  could  ;  but  in  so  doing  I  have  come  to  feel  as 
if  every  word  that  I  wrote  were  true. 

What  I  shall  write  next  happens  to  be  pretty 
well  authenticated.  To  be  sure,  the  letter  in 
which  Cleveland  wrote  it  down  has  been  lost ; 
but  I  have  talked  with  people  who  read  it  for 
themselves,  and  I  find  that  all  the  versions 
agree  in  the  main. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night,  —  the  same  night, 
it  must  have  been,  when  Beverly  wrote  the  last 
words  in  his  journal,  —  there  came  a  low  knock 
at  Cleveland's  door.  Whereupon  Cleveland, 
who  was  a  light  sleeper,  rose,  with  sundry  oaths 
that  he  should  be  disturbed  at  such  an  hour,  and 
went  to  see  who  disturbed  him.  To  his  surprise 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  219 

he  found  Beverly,  who  had  not  deigned  to  visit 
him  for  some  weeks.  And  Beverly,  without 
waiting  for  any  formalities,  told  the  artist  that 
he  must  put  on  his  clothes  and  come  with  him, 
on  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 

"  There  is  not  a  moment  to  lose,"  said  Bev 
erly.  u  We  must  have  a  man  that  we  can  trust ; 
and  I  know  that  we  can  trust  you,  for  you  are 
a  gentleman,"  —  a  charge,  as  Cleveland  re 
marked  in  his  letter,  to  which  it  was  his  habit 
invariably  to  plead  guilty. 

So,  wondering  what  on  earth  was  up,  Cleve 
land  hurried  into  his  clothes,  and  climbed  the 
stairs  that  led  to  Beverly's  rooms. 

There  they  found  three  figures  waiting  for 
them,  all  wrapped  in  cloaks.  By  the  light  of 
the  single  candle  that  burned  in  the  great  room 
Cleveland  could  not  at  first  make  out  their 
faces ;  but  presently  he  was  astonished  to  rec 
ognize,  in  a  man  who  stood  as  erect  as  if  he  had 
been  young,  the  Cardinal  Colonna.  For  the 
Cardinal  beckoned  him  forward ;  and  in  a  few 
words  thanked  him  for  his  presence,  and  told. 


220  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

him  that  he  had  been  sent  for  to  witness  a  mar 
riage  which  circumstances  compelled  them  to 
solemnize  in  secret.  Then,  without  more  ado, 
the  Cardinal  Colonna  turned  to  the  other  figures 
who  were  with  him ;  and  they  knelt  d*own,  and 
with  a  short  formal  service  the  Cardinal  made 
them  man  and  wife.  Meanwhile  Cleveland  and 
Beverly  stood  by ;  and  Cleveland  told  how  in 
the  candle-light  it  had  seemed  to  him  that  the 
gleam  in  Beverly's  wide-open  eyes  was  the  gleam 
of  tears. 

When  the  service  was  over,  the  wedded  couple 
kissed  the  Cardinal's  hand.  Then  they  slowly 
rose,  and  clasping  each  other  in  their  arms 
stood  in  close  embrace,  gazing  into  each  other's 
eyes.  Meanwhile  the  Cardinal  Colonna  moved 
toward  the  table  where  the  candle  stood,  and 
bending  down  signed  his  name  with  a  firm  hand 
to  a  paper  that  lay  there.  Then  he  beckoned 
to  Cleveland  and  to  Beverly ;  and  with  his 
thin  white  finger  pointed  out  the  places  where 
they  should  sign.  And  when  their  names 
were  written  he  took  up  the  paper,  and  folding 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  221 

it  turned  to  the  lovers  whom  he  had  joined 
together,  and  held  it  out  ta  them. 

"God  be  with  you,  my  children,"  he  said. 
"  I  seal  the  beginning  of  your  earthly  hopes 
with  the  end  of  mine.  But  my  heart  is  light; 
for  I  have  done  God's  will.  May  He  smile  on 
you  through  all  your  lives  as  He  smiles  on  me 
to-night." 

He  spoke  in  a  low,  firm  voice ;  and  the  hand 
that  held  the  paper  did  not  tremble.  The 
lovers  turned  toward  him  to  take  the  paper ; 
and,  as  they  turned,  Cleveland  knew  them  for 
the  Count  Luigi  and  the  Contessina  Filippa. 
The  Count  took  the  paper  with  a  look  of  loving 
gratitude  that  meant  more,  Cleveland  wrote, 
than  a  whole  oration,  with  applause  into  the 
bargain.  For  all  that,  the  Count  was  not  satis 
fied  with  looks,  but  began  to  speak  his  gratitude 
in  words.  Whereupon  the  Cardinal  Colorma 
raised  his  hand  with  a  gesture  of  remonstrance, 
and  pointing  to  Beverly,  who  stood  aside,  bade 
them  thank  him,  to  whom  all  the  gratitude 
was  due.  Then,  before  the  Count  had  time 


222  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

to  speak  again,  the  Cardinal  Colonna  himself 
spoke  to  Beverly. 

"  Friend,"  he  said,  "  I  too  owe  you  grateful 
thanks;  for  the  voice  of  God  tells  me  in  my 
heart  that  it  is  to  you  that  I  shall  owe  my 
salvation,  and  to  no  deeds  of  mine." 

And  what  the  devil  it  all  meant,  Cleveland 
wrote,  he  could  not  imagine. 

The  scene  of  gratitude  was  short,  however ; 
for  Beverly,  who  seemed  more  master  of  him 
self  than  any  of  the  others,  warned  them  that 
there  was  no  time  to  spare,  and  blowing  out 
the  light,  led  the  way  with  soft  steps  to  the 
door-way.  Then  the  whole  company  slowly  and 
silently  passed  down  the  chilly  stairway,  until 
they  came  to  the  Cardinal  Colonna's  door. 
There  they  left  him,  the  lovers  kissing  his  hand 
once  more,  and  he  once  more  whispering  a  word 
of  blessing.  And  as  they  crept  on  down  the 
stairway,  they  heard  his  door  softly  close  behind 
him. 

Beverly  and  Cleveland  were  side  by  side  in 
the  darkness ;  the  lovers  just  before  them.  As 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  223 

they  passed  on,  Cleveland  felt  his  kinsman 
clutch  his  arm. 

"  Cleveland,"  he  heard  him  whisper,  in  a  tone 
of  strange  joy,  "  the  shadows  are  here  no  more. 
What  does  it  mean  ?  The  end  is  not  come,  yet 
the  shadows  are  here  no  more." 

Before  Cleveland  could  answer  this  speech, 
which  seemed  to  him  a  burst  of  madness,  the 
little  company  came  to  the  outer  door  of  the 
palace.  There  a  small  gate  in  the  great  door 
stood  open.  And  the  lovers,  turning  once  to 
press  Beverly's  hand,  passed  without  into  the 
dark  street,  alone  together  at  last.  And  whither 
they  went,  and  what  befell  them  from  that  time 
on,  I  have  never  known. 

Then  with  stealthy  movements  Beverly  closed 
the  little  gate  and  drew  the  bolts  to.  And  then, 
muttering  a  word  of  thanks  to  Cleveland  for 
coming  at  his  bidding,  he  turned  ;  and  together 
they  set  about  climbing  the  stairs  once  more. 

Of  a  sudden,  just  as  they  were  close  to  the 
Cardinal  Colonna's  door,  a  great  noise  burst 
upon  the  quiet  of  the  night.  The  Cardinal's 


224  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

door  was  flung  open.  There  was  a  sound  of 
voices  and  of  hurrying  steps  within.  There 
was  a  flash  of  lights  ;  and  forth  rushed  a  man, 
shouting  in  anger, -who  turned  toward  the  stair 
way  where  Cleveland  and  Beverly  stood.  Who 
it  was  Cleveland  could  not  see.  Beverly's  eyes 
seemed  better. 

"  It  is  that  black  devil! "  he  cried.  "  He  shall 
not  chase  them  I "  And  leaping  forward  he  bade 
him  stop. 

The  man  tried  to  push  him  aside  ;  whereupon 
Beverly  clutched  him  by  the  throat.  For  an 
instant  they  struggled  on  the  landing.  Then 
together  they  pitched  headlong  down  the  stone 
stairs  into  the  darkness  below. 

In  a  moment  more,  there  came  out  of  the 
Cardinal's  rooms  servants  with  lights.  With 
them  Cleveland  hurried  down  the  stairs  to  the 
bottom,  where  all  was  still.  There,  side  by 
side,  they  found  the  forms  of  Beverly  and  Dei 
Bardi.  The  priest  was  dead.  His  neck  was 
broken.  He  lay  staring  upwards,  his  thin  lips 
parted,  his  thin  cheeks  puckered  with  a  grin  of 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  225 

agony.  He  looked,  Cleveland  wrote,  like  one 
who  was  already  in  hell. 

Beverly  lay  as  quiet  as  he  ;  but  on  his  face 
was  a  look  of  peace.  And  as  they  bent  over 
him  they  saw  that  he  still  breathed ;  so  they 
lifted  him  up  and  gently  bore  him  to  Cleve 
land's  chambers.  There  they  laid  him  on  a  bed, 
where  he  rested  with  closed  eyes. 

Meanwhile  others  bore  the  priest  back  to  the 
room  whence  he  had  rushed  forth.  And  the 
Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna,  they  say,  when  they 
told  him  what  had  happened,  and  that  Beverly 
still  lived,  said  no  word ;  but  knelt  beside  the 
form  of  his  dead  servant,  and  prayed  throughout 
the  Roman  night  for  the  wily  soul  that  had 
given  all  its  wiles  to  his  service. 


15 


XVII. 

what  happened  hereafter  among  the  Ro- 
mans  whose  lives  Beverly  had  changed  I 
have  no  record.  Indeed,  I  care  to  know  noth 
ing  of  what  the  Prince  Palchi  said  and  did,  or 
of  what  oaths  the  angry  Countess  swore,  or  of 
what  busied  the  brains  of  those  churchmen  who 
had  plotted  with  the  dead  Florentine  to  place 
the  Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna  on  Pope  Gregory's 
seat.  For  what  I  am  writing  is  the  story  of 
Richard  Beverly's  life  and  nothing  else.  And 
now  I  am  come  close  to  the  end  of  it. 

Born  in  the  clear  air  of  our  New  England, 
reared  in  the  simple  traditions  of  a  time  that 
still  remembered  the  lessons  of  the  fathers,  he 
was  come  in  his  manhood  to  a  world  where  all 
was  different,  —  where  the  air  was  full  of  golden 
haze,  where  all  external  life  was  beautiful  and 
soft,  where  life  stretched  back  to  farthest  time, 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  227 

and  with  it  the  roots  of  the  sin  that  flourished 
even  in  the  shadow  of  God's  church.  There  he 
had  lived  as  best  he  could,  never  failing  the 
traditions  in  which  he  had  been  reared.  There 
his  New-World  purity  had  fought  and  won  its 
little  battle ;  and  had  sown  in  the  soil  of  the 
beautiful,  corrupt  old  Rome  that  Victor  Em 
manuel's  soldiers  have  swept  from  the  earth,  a 
seed  of  truth  and  of  goodness  that  I  love  to 
think  may  still  be  growing  and  strengthening 
in  the  new  Italy,  whose  banners  now  wave  in 
the  Roman  sunshine.  It  was  the  musket-shot 
of  Concord  that  awoke  old  Europe  to  liberty. 
I  like  to  think  that  it  shall  be  the  mission  of 
our  New  World  to  win  her  back  to  purity.  But 
when  I  fall  to  talking  as  I  find  that  I  am  writing 
now,  my  sensible  friends  smile  in  a  pitying  way. 
Perhaps  the  whole  notion  is  a  wild  one,  caught 
from  the  madness  of  poor  Richard  Beverly  with 
which  I  have  lived  so  much  of  late.  I  must 
back  to  him,  once  for  all. 

After  the  night  when  they  bore  him  up  the 
great    stairway   and   laid   him   on   the   bed  in 


228  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

Cleveland's  chambers,  he  lay  for  days  in  a  stu 
por.  Cleveland  was  all  kindness  ;  and  so  was  his 
wife,  who  nursed  the  sick  man  as  tenderly  as  a 
mother.  But  for  days  he  knew  nothing  of  what 
was  about  him  ;  and  the  doctors  who  came  shook 
their  heads,  and  said  that  he  might  die  without 
awakening  to  consciousness.  Most  of  the  time 
he  rested  quietly ;  but  now  and  then  he  would 
utter  incoherent  words,  always  in  the  language 
of  Italy.  Finally,  as  a  night  more  troubled  than 
most  was  drawing  to  a  close,  he  began  to  rave 
aloud,  crying  out  as  if  his  mind  were  in  a  great 
agony.  But  by  and  lay  his  eyes  opened  wide, 
with  a  look  of  wondering  joy,  and  he  lay  very 
still,  gazing  at  something  which  those  about  him 
could  not  see.  His  heart  seemed  too  full  to 
speak.  The  look  of  joy  brightened  more  and 
more,  till  at  last  he  swooned,  as  one  swoons  in  a 
summer  air  too  full  of  the  scent  of  flowers. 
Then  they  thought  he  was  dying ;  but  he  fell 
into  a  short  sleep,  and  finally  he  opened  his  eyes 
and  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  as  if  he  knew  at  last 
what  words  he  spoke. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  229 

They  hurried  to  his  side.  There  he  called 
them  by  name,  and  thanked  them  for  the  gentle 
ness  with  which  they  had  cared  for  him.  But 
when  they  asked  him  what  he  would  have 
them  do,  his  answer  made  them  think  that  his 
mind  still  wandered  ;  for  he  asked  them  to  call 
Giulio. 

Whom  did  he  mean  ?  they  asked. 

Then  he  smiled  as  if  he  saw  his  own  folly, 
and  asked  them  to  go  and  pray  that  the  Cardi 
nal  Colonna  would  come  to  him.  They  thought 
that  he  was  still  wandering,  that  he  did  not 
know  what  he  said.  But  though  they  spoke 
gentle  words  of  remonstrance,  and  tried  to 
soothe  him,  he  would  not  give  up  his  purpose. 
Gently  smiling,  with  no  touch  of  anger  in  his 
persistence,  he  kept  on  asking  them  to  summon 
the  Cardinal  Colonna  to  his  side.  The  Cardi 
nal  would  come,  he  said,  when  they  told  him 
that  a  dying  man  had  words  to  speak  to  him, 
and  to  him  alone,  before  he  could  die. 

So  at  last,  fearing  all  the  while  that  the  Car 
dinal  Colonna  might  take  great  offence  at  what 


230  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

they  did,  they  went  to  him  with  Beverly's  mes 
sage,  encouraging  themselves  with  the  thought 
that  each  day  a  servant  of  the  Cardinal's  had 
knocked  at  Cleveland's  door  to  hear  news  of 
the  sick  man.  When  they  came  to  the  Cardi 
nal's  rooms  they  were  not  permitted  to  enter  his 
presence  ;  but  their  message  was  carried  to  him, 
and  in  return  he  sent  them  a  word  of  thanks. 
In  a  few  moments  he  would  come,  as  the  sick 
man  prayed.  And  hardly  had  they  brought 
back  this  word,  when  he  followed  in  their  foot 
steps  to  the  room  where  Beverly  lay. 

When  he  stood  before  them,  they  say,  the 
old  man  seemed  as  near  his  end  as  did  the  sick 
man  who  lay  on  his  death-bed.  For  his  thin 
face  was  as  pale  as  death  ;  and  his  steps  were 
so  feeble  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  must  fall,  even 
though  a  servant  held  his  arm  on  either  side. 
But  in  his  face  there  was  a  look  of  such  holi 
ness  as  even  those  who  had  known  his  face 
when  all  Rome  said  that  it  was  the  face  of  an 
angel,  had  never  dreamed  of.  For  if  of  old  his 
face  had  been  like  that  of  one  who  from  afar  off 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  231 

looked  upon  the  peace  of  heaven,  now  it  was 
like  the  face  of  one  who  dwelt  therein.  So, 
with  peaceful  face  and  tottering  steps,  the  old 
Cardinal  made  his  way  to  Beverly's  side,  and 
stood  above  the  sick  man. 

What  passed  then  passed  between  those  two. 
The  others  who  were  by  stood  aside,  and  list 
ened  with  awe  to  words  which  they  could  not 
understand.  So  they  kept  silent ;  and  the  old 
Cardinal  and  the  siok  man  were  face  to  face, 
and  seemed  not  to  know  that  any  other  men 
were  by. 

At  first  Beverly  smiled,  and  held  out  his  right 
hand  with  a  feeble  movement,  as  if  he  had  hardly 
the  power  to  stir  it,  and  all  his  power  came  from 
his  will  and  not  from  the  muscles  that  had 
moved  his  arm  in  the  days  of  his  strength. 
And  the  old  Cardinal  took  the  wasted  hand  and 
held  it  in  his.  Then  they  heard  Beverly  call 
him  by  his  name  Giulio,  in  a  tone  that  was  full 
of  love. 

The  Cardinal  Colonna  started,  and  gazed 
down  on  the  sick  man  with  a  look  of  won- 


232  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

der.  And  Beverly  called  him  by  his  name 
again,  and  told  him  with  a  smile  that  he 
had  known  that  he  would  come  to  hear  his 
message. 

Then,  with  slow  words,  the  old  Cardinal 
prayed  the  sick  man,  in  the  name  of  God,  to 
tell  him  who  and  what  he  was. 

And  Beverly  answered  that  he  might  speak 
out  at  last :  that  the  spirit  which  was  passing 
was  the  spirit  which  in  the  olden  time  Giulio 
had  loved. 

Thereupon,  with  a  loud  cry,  the  Cardinal 
Colonna  uttered  the  name  of  Emilia,  and  bend 
ing  down  over  the  sick  man,  looked  into  his 
eyes  with  a  look  of  fear.  But  Beverly  looked 
up  with  a  loving  smile ;  and  the  old  Cardinal 
raised  himself  up  full  of  wonder,  and  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  motioned  those  who  had 
pressed  near  him  to  stand  away.  So  they  moved 
back ;  and  the  Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna  stood 
alone  beside  the  sick  man's  bed,  gazing  into 
his  great  eyes  and  listening  to  the  words  which 
he  spoke. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  233 

Then  Beverly  told  him  how  he  had  just 
awakened  from  a  vision. 

"It  seemed  to  me,"  he  said,  "that  I  was  in 
the  garden  where  in  the  olden  time  we  loved. 
And  whether  I  was  that  which  I  am  or  that 
which  I  was  I  could  not  tell.  But  full  of 
trouble  for  the  sin  I  had  done  I  knelt  among 
the  flowers ;  and  gazing  up  to  the  heavens  I 
prayed  with  all  my  heart  for  light,  that  I  might 
see  the  way  to  work  out  my  salvation.  It  was 
in  the  night-time ;  and  as  I  prayed  I  found 
my  eyes  fixed  upon  a  star  that  burned  brighter 
than  the  rest.  Then  presently  its  light  grew, 
and  spread  about  me  until  I  could  see  no  other 
thing,  but  knelt  surrounded  by  the  glory  it 
shed  about  me.  Then  I  looked  into  the  depths 
of  the  glory  of  the  star,  and  afar  off  I  saw  the 
throne  of  heaven.  And  as  I  looked,  there  came 
before  the  throne  one  who  wore  a  crown  and 
bore  in  her  hand  a  palm.  Her  I  knew  for  the 
virgin  Emilia,  who  gave  her  life  for  Christ  in 
old  Rome.  Then  kneeling  before  the  throne  she 
spoke  pitiful  words,  and  prayed  that  the  peace 


234  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

of  God  might  be  granted  to  the  soul  of  one  who 
in  the  earth  had  borne  her  name.  And  she  told 
how  in  time  past  when  that  soul  had  hovered 
above  the  brink  of  hell  she  had  prayed  for  a 
respite,  and  the  respite  had  been  granted.  And 
now  she  prayed  that  the  misery  it  had  suffered 
and  the  work  it  had  done  might  be  deemed 
enough.  This  she  prayed  in  the  name  of  her 
Lord  Christ.  Then  from  out  the  glory  of  the 
throne  came  a  voice  that  answered  her  and 
said,  Yet  a  little  while  and  her  prayer  should 
be  granted.  Then  I  stretched  out  my  hands 
and  strove  to  rise  into  the  glory  of  the  star ; 
but  I  could  not.  And  presently  I  was  kneeling 
again  in  the  Roman  garden,  ami  the  star  was 
again  only  the  brightest  of  the  stars  that 
shone  in  the  Roman  night.  But  my  heart  was 
troubled  no  more ;  for  I  had  heard  the  promise 
of  peace." 

Then  his  voice  stopped,  and  through  his  form 
there  went  a  shiver,  and  his  e}res  closed  ;  and 
those  who  were  about  him  knew  that  his  spirit 
was  passing,  and  fell  upon  their  knees.  But  the 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  235 

Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna  stood  erect,  with  a  face 
full  of  such  joy  as  the  saints  feel  when  first  they 
enter  into  their  rest.  In  his  right  hand  he  held 
on  high  the  crucifix,  where  the  eyes  of  the  sick 
man  should  see  it  if  by  chance  they  opened  once 
more.  And  he  spoke  aloud,  in  tones  of  triumph, 
prayers  for  a  passing  soul  such  as  he  might 
speak  for  one  of  his  own  believers.  Then  by 
and  by  the  face  of  Beverly  was  lighted  again 
with  a  radiance  of  joy  such  as  might  have  shone 
from  it  in  his  vision,  when  in  the  star-lit  gar 
den  the  glory  of  Heaven  beamed  upon  him. 
Once  more  his  eyes  were  opened.  Once  more 
he  spoke. 

"Giulio!"  he  said,  "give  thanks  to  God; 
for  the  end  is  come.  And  the  end  is  peace." 

Then  he  looked  with  one  last  look  on  the 
crucifix,  and  closed  his  eyes;  and  gently  as 
a  little  child  falls  into  sleep  he  ceased  to 
breathe. 

Then  the  Cardinal  Giulio  Colonna,  first  look 
ing  down  to  be  assured  that  Beverly  was  no 
more,  turned  his  face  heavenward,  and  in  a  loud 


236  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

voice  spoke  the  words  of  praise  that  the  saints 
have  taught  to  the  lips  of  men  :  — 

"  Gloria  Patri  et  Filio  et  Spiritui  Sancto  : 
sicut  erat  in  principio  et  nunc  et  semper  in  saecula 
saeculorum" 


CONCLUSION. 

T  TERE,  T  thought,  the  story  of  Richard 
•*•  •*•  Beverly  should  have  ended;  and  when 
I  wrote  the  last  words  I  put  it  aside  feeling  that 
my  work  was  done.  But  afterwards  I  happened 
to  go  back  to  Rome,  where  more  than  ever  the 
traces  of  the  old  papal  times  are  being  swept 
away.  I  saw  new  fragments  of  the  Forum;  and 
new  boulevards  ;  and  dashing  young  officers,  in 
jackets  trimmed  with  Astrachan  fur ;  and  Pied- 
montese  soldiers,  with  floating  plumes  of  dark 
feathers,  marching  to  the  sound  of  the  bugle  ; 
and  amid  all  the  bustle  of  modern  life,  staring 
King  Humbert  himself,  driving  with  his  fair- 
faced  queen,  while  thin  Pope  Leo  sulked  in 
his  prison  of  the  Vatican. 

More  than  ever  I  felt  that  the  Rome  of  which  I 
had  written, — the  Rome  where  Richard  Beverly 
came  to  meet  his  end,  —  was  a  shadowy  thing 


238  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

that  had  vanished  from  the  earth.  I  rubbed 
my  eyes,  wondering  if  after  all  it  had  been 
anything  but  a  dream.  Nor,  indeed,  did  I  feel 
that  it  was  much  more  real  when  I  went  with 
out  the  gate  of  Saint  Paul,  and  there,  in  the 
burying-place  where  Keats  and  Shelley  lie  in 
the  shadow  of  the  monument  that  the  gold  of 
the  Roman  Cestius  built  for  him  in  the  days 
of  the  Emperors,  found  among  the  flowers  a  little 
stone  on  which  was  cut  the  name  of  Beverly. 

But  by  and  by  I  made  my  way  again  to  the 
church  of  Santa  Emilia.  There  the  same  old 
custode  I  had  seen  before  unlocked  the  gates  of 
the  Colonna  chapel,  and  followed  me  within  them 
to  tell  in  his  cracked  old  voice  how  like  Para 
dise  its  marble  glories  were.  Like  Paradise 
indeed  they  were  in  one  respect ;  for  they  were 
in  no  way  changed.  They  were  just  as  they 
had  been  in  the  days  when  the  popes  still  ruled 
Rome,  when  Beverly  found  here  the  key  to  his 
life-mystery.  Here,  just  as  they  had  been,  were 
the  blazing  marbles  that  the  old  princes  had 
brought  together  to  gladden  their  burial-place. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  239 

Here  was  the  tomb  of  Emilia  Colonna  just  as 
Beverly  had  seen  it. 

At  least,  so  I  thought  until  I  fell  to  talking 
with  the  old  eustode,  to  whom  I  would  not 
listen  when  I  came  to  the  chapel  before.  This 
time  I  was  less  surly  ;  and  perhaps  with  time 
the  old  man  had  grown  even  more  garrulous. 
For  I  found  myself,  after  a  while,  listening  with 
interest  to  his  tales  of  the  Colonnas,  and  to  his 
laments  that  the  race  was  no  more. 

Were  they  all  dead  ?  I  asked  him. 

All,  he  said,  with  a  sigh  and  a  shake  of  the 
head.  Then,  tottering  over  to  a  corner  of  the 
chapel,  he  stood  above  a  simple  slab  in  the  floor, 
which  I  had  not  noticed  ;  and  pointing  to  it  with 
his  bony  hand,  he  croaked  out  that  here  lay  the 
last,  who  had  been  laid  there  forty  years  ago. 

I  looked  at  the  slab.  There  were  but  three 
words  carved  thereon  :  — 

IVLIVS  •  COLVMNA  •  CARDINAL 

He  would  have  it  just  so,  the  old  eustode  told 
me.  He  was  a  very  holy  man,  full  of  humility, 


240  The  Duchess  Emilia. 

—  very  holy  indeed.  They  used  to  say  that  if 
he  had  not  died  before  Pius  the  Ninth  was 
made  pope  he  might  have  been  made  pope  him 
self.  But  the  old  custode  did  not  believe  this 
story;  the  Cardinal  Colonna  had  doubtless  been 
a  very  holy  man,  but —  And  here  the  old  fel 
low  shook  his  wrinkled  head,  and  slowly  tapped 
his  forehead  with  his  gnarled  finger. 

What  did  he  mean  ?  I  asked.  Did  the  Car 
dinal's  mind  fail? 

Well,  that  was  as  one  might  please  to  think. 
For  his  part,  the  old  custode  did  not  see  how  a 
man  whose  mind  was  clear  could  choose  to  lie 
under  a  miserable  little  slab  when  he  might  have 
had  a  tomb  fit  to  take  with  him  to  Paradise. 
Besides,  just  before  he  died,  the  old  Cardinal  had 
had  a  strange  fancy.  He  had  insisted  that  they 
should  add  to  the  epitaph  of  one  of  his  kinsfolk 
who  lay  here  some  words  that  meant  nothing,  and 
that  quite  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  sculpture. 
A  man  whose  mind  was  clear  would  have  known 
better  than  to  deface  such  carving  as  this  to 
make  room  for  words  that  had  no  meaning. 


The  Duchess  Emilia.  241 

The  old  custode  had  hobbled  across  the  chapel, 
and  stood  before  the  tomb  of  Emilia  Colonna. 
As  he  spoke  he  pointed  to  three  words  below 
the  old  inscription.  To  make  room  for  them 
a  bit  of  the  ornamental  border  of  the  slab  on 
which  the  name  of  Emilia  was  carved  had  been 
cut  away.  And  as  the  old  custode  pointed  at 
them  with  one  hand,  he  shook  his  head  again, 
with  a  look  of  commiseration,  and  tapped  his 
forehead  with  the  other  hand  once  more. 

But  what  he  showed  me -meant  much  to  me. 
For  there,  beneath  the  name  of  Emilia  Colonna, 
and  the  simple  dates  that  told  when  she  had 
come  into  the  world  and  when  she  had  left  it, 
were  the  three  words  which  in  his  last  days  the 
Cardinal  Giulio  had  placed  on  her  tomb, — 

NVNC •  IN  • PACE 


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